


In Another Place

by wallmakerrelict



Category: Doctor Who, Sherlock (TV), Supernatural
Genre: Action/Adventure, Asexual Relationship, Established Relationship, F/M, Fallen Castiel, Gen, M/M, POV Alternating, Pete's World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-06
Updated: 2012-11-06
Packaged: 2017-11-18 02:17:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/555783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wallmakerrelict/pseuds/wallmakerrelict
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock and John are looking for a case to occupy Sherlock's mind. Rose and the Doctor are working at Torchwood, and finding that navigating a romantic relationship is more complicated than they imagined. Sam and Dean Winchester are saving people and hunting things along with a newly-fallen Castiel. They all happen to come together when Captain Jack Harkness crash-lands on Earth (accidentally kidnapping Sam shortly thereafter) and Torchwood is sent to investigate. But it's not all fun and games. Someone or something is after Jack, and everyone is about to get pulled into the chase.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Another Place

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the SuperWhoLock Big Bang, a challenge that unfortunately died in the middle of claiming. But I was lucky. My fic did get claimed, and my wonderful artist [**ammo**](http://www.ammo.livejournal.com) agreed to finish her pieces for me. I am in awe of her talent. Special thanks also to my beta [**mixeduppainter**](http://www.twitter.com/mixeduppainter), whose red pen of doom is turning me into a better writer. 
> 
> Art post is [**here**](http://ammo.livejournal.com/215487.html). She also has a [**tumblr**](http://www.ammosart.tumblr.com). If you like the art on this story, please follow the links to give her some love.

Whenever John Watson had the dubious pleasure of seeing Mycroft Holmes, it was usually under one of two circumstances. Either Mycroft would visit 221B Baker Street, in which case he was probably there to ask his little brother for a favor, or John would be kidnapped by one of Mycroft's assistants. Occurrences of the former were amusing due to Sherlock's merciless teasing, while the latter were exasperating due to the fact that despite multiple abductions, Anthea still had not learned John's name nor given him her real one.

But this time was different: for once, Sherlock had sought out his brother instead of the other way around. Sherlock had insisted that John accompany him to Mycroft's private room of the Diogenes Club, and while he had refused to say the words "moral support," John was fairly sure that was what he needed. After all the times Sherlock had belittled Mycroft for begging favors, it had to be humiliating to have the tables turned.

John stood by the window, out of the way of the action, while the Holmes brothers conversed. Mycroft sat comfortably in his chair. Sherlock paced manically. 

"Surely your friend at Scotland Yard has something for you to do," said Mycroft smoothly. Though he tried to busy himself with a stack of envelopes, he was clearly watching Sherlock's agitation with barely-suppressed glee. 

"Lestrade hasn't contacted me in weeks," said Sherlock, never breaking stride. "Clearly the Yard has nothing on their plate that requires my expertise."

"Maybe he's avoiding you," Mycroft suggested. "I would, if I were him."

Sherlock's lip twitched, but he didn't rise to Mycroft's bait. "Do you have something for me, or not?" he said. 

"There may be one or two matters that are worth looking into," said Mycroft, shuffling his papers. "But I'm sure they wouldn't interest you."

Sherlock stopped his pacing to whirl and grab the armrests of Mycroft's chair. He hovered over him, wild-eyed. "I haven't had a case in months," he said.

At this, John interjected, "You had a case three days ago."

Without so much as a glance at John, Sherlock amended himself to, "I haven't had a _decent_ case in months. Mycroft, you have to help me. I can feel my mind stagnating with each passing day. Give me a case. I'll do anything."

Mycroft quirked an eyebrow. "Anything?"

Sherlock straightened, scrunched his face, and admitted, "Well, no. Not anything."

"If you're going to be picky about it," said Mycroft, scooping up his papers, "Then I'm afraid I won't be of much use to you." He started toward the door, but Sherlock blocked his path.

"Oh, come now, Mycroft," he said. "You know what I want."

Mycroft's face fell. "That is out of the question!"

"What is?" John asked. He was ignored.

"Just get me in the door," Sherlock wheedled. "I'll find something to divert me once I get inside. Torchwood always has something interesting going on."

"It's not that simple," said Mycroft. "They won't just let you wander around. I'd need to assign an operative to look after you, and I can't do that."

"Why not?" Sherlock demanded.

"Because they've met you," said Mycroft flatly. "Every person who I've ever assigned to be your chaperone has asked me very politely to never let you near their division ever again."

"Oh," said Sherlock, momentarily crestfallen. "Even Lisa?"

"Especially Lisa," said Mycroft.

Though he was having trouble keeping up, John pitched in, "Surely he can't have met everyone at this Torchwood place. Can't you find someone new and unsuspecting to give him to?" Mycroft glared, silently warning him not to interfere. John rolled his eyes. "Don't give me that. I'm the one who has to live with him, and he's insufferable when he's bored."

Sherlock beamed. Mycroft looked about ready to storm out for good when a sudden change came over his face. "Actually…" he said, considering. "Now that you mention it, I think there is someone. Yes. You know, I think you'll get along quite well with her."

"Why do you say that?" Sherlock and John asked simultaneously. Sherlock's voice held a note of suspicion, while John's held a twinge of jealousy.

Mycroft smiled at them both. "Because I've met her boyfriend," he said. "If she can put up with him, then she can put up with anybody. I'll have a car pick you up in the morning. Now if you'll excuse me…"

Sherlock waited until his brother had left the room before spinning in an excited circle and pumping his fists.

John smiled at his friend's excitement, though he was still quite lost. "What was that all about?" he asked. "What do you want with Torchwood? I thought they were some kind of R&D operation."

"As usual, you take everything at face value," said Sherlock, still flailing his hands happily. "Torchwood is much more than they appear. They have alien technology! Trans-dimensional capabilities! Artificial intelligence!"

"Doesn't sound likely that we'll find a crime to solve there," said John.

Sherlock waved a hand dismissively. "I'm not looking for a crime. I'm looking for a puzzle that will test my intellect. That's the beauty of Torchwood. When you put that many idiots in a building with all the nation's greatest technological discoveries, something is bound to go wrong. And it does. Constantly. There are always problems that need solving at Torchwood, and they're always interesting." He smoothed his coat as he added, "Besides, we might solve a few crimes while we're at it. You'd be amazed how many of the suspicious deaths that happen in London can be traced back to aliens."

"I don't know," said John. "It's certainly not our usual."

John's dubious tone made Sherlock pause. "But you're with me, aren't you?" he said.

John put his misgivings aside. "Do you even need to ask?"

They tiptoed out of the Diogenes Club like two little boys with a permission slip for a field trip. Once they were out in the sunlight again and away from the rooms full of stodgy, old, silence-preoccupied politicians, John brought up one last concern. "Who do you suppose she is? The one Mycroft mentioned."

Sherlock shook his head with a wry smile. "Doesn't matter," he said. "If she's like the rest of the Torchwood lot, there's nothing remarkable about her."

\-----

Rose Tyler was the second most remarkable person at Torchwood. She was a time traveler and a dimension-hopper. She had been knighted by Queen Victoria and witnessed the end of the world. She had also prevented the end of the world a couple of times, once by becoming an omniscient, omnipresent, all-powerful avatar of the Time Vortex. 

At the moment, she was handing tools down to the first most remarkable person at Torchwood, who was working inside the shell of an ancient spacecraft. "I don't suppose you have a 3/17 occipital left-leaning Heterodyne wrench up there, do you?" asked the Doctor.

Rose looked through the toolkit that Torchwood had given her. It contained gadgets that would have given a science fiction writer a nosebleed, but to someone of the Doctor's expertise it was like having to work with nothing but a hammer and some twine. "Will this do?" she said, handing down something that she thought might resemble what the Doctor was looking for.

He took it with a grimace. "I suppose it'll have to," he said before disappearing back into the fuselage.

They had found the wreck in Torchwood's basement storage. No one knew what it was or how long it had been there, but the Doctor had been quick to identify it as the remains of a Persephonean long-range shuttle. Rose thought it looked like a piece of junk, but the Doctor thought he could get it flying again. 

For the both of them, the thought of going back into the stars was like a whiff of secondhand smoke to a recovering addict. They threw themselves into the work of restoring the ship. As it came together, Rose noticed that the Doctor was beginning to act more like his old self. The cheeky smile was back, as were the corny jokes. Even being forced to work with ordinary tools instead of his sonic screwdriver couldn't dampen his spirits much. It was almost like having the proper Doctor back.

 _No,_ Rose reminded herself. _There is no_ proper _Doctor. This is the Doctor. The only one I've got._

The Doctor in question popped his head back out, beaming. "It worked!" he announced. "Now all we need is a new compression coil and we'll be spacebound."

Rose blinked once, the smile sliding from her face. "A compression coil like the one in the TARDIS?"

"Obviously nothing so advanced as that," said the Doctor, "But you've got the right idea." 

"Doctor," said Rose slowly, "Wasn't that coil made of an alloy of metals that are only found on Gallifrey?"

The Doctor was quick to reply. "Yes, but that's because it was a really top-of-the-line part. We could make do with something much simpler. As long as it…" And there he began to slow as realization took hold. "As long as it… had the correct properties… that are possessed by absolutely nothing on Earth at this time."

Rose was searching for a way to reassure him when the Doctor suddenly struck the hull of the ship with the wrench. The angry, metallic sound reverberated through the storage area, and all at once the light went out of the Doctor's eyes. With a few more sweeps of the wrench, he tore apart the intricate inner workings of the ship that they had spent days rebuilding. The helpless rage on his face made Rose recoil as the memory of her last visit to Bad Wolf Bay ran through her head.

 _Born in battle_ , the proper Doctor had said of his clone, _Full of blood and anger and revenge._

Rose pushed the words out of her head and snatched the wrench out of the Doctor's hands before he could do any more damage. "That's enough," she snapped. "We might want to use some of these parts later."

The Doctor's anger had cooled to resentful sulkiness. "What for?" he said bitterly. "We'll never make it back up there. We've tried everything! We're going to be stuck on this stupid planet for the rest of our lives." He clambered out of the useless ship and gave the exterior one last kick.

Rose didn't point out the fact that most people aren't bothered by that, but instead reminded him, "You used to like Earth."

"I used to be able to leave Earth if I wanted," the Doctor sulked. "Apparently absence really does make the hearts grow fonder." Then he corrected himself with a frown, "Heart. Singular."

Rose would have told him to stop feeling sorry for himself, perhaps a little more harshly than she should have, but she was interrupted by the approach of two men. Their confident, synchronized strides made Rose think they must be Torchwood agents until she noticed the visitor badges pinned to their coats. The shorter man greeted her with a nod and asked, "Rose Tyler?"

"That's right," said Rose dubiously.

The man extended his hand. "Doctor John Watson," he said, "and this is my friend, Sherlock Holmes."

Rose searched her memory for a second before she recognized the name. "Holmes!" she said. "You must be Mycroft's little brother. Lisa warned me about you."

Sherlock Holmes ignored her. His gaze skittered over every surface and fixture of the storage unit, taking it in silently but intently. Most of the contents of the room looked like junk, but Rose got the impression that Sherlock Holmes understood more about each object with a glance than the whole of Torchwood did with all their tests.

"Did you say you were Doctor Watson?" asked the Doctor, bounding forward eagerly, his spirits evidently repaired. "It's good to meet you! I'm a fan of your blog."

"You read blogs?" said Rose out of the side of her mouth, amused.

"I can't read the Time Vortex anymore," whispered the Doctor, almost managing to keep the bitterness out of his voice. "I might as well read murder mysteries."

"Cheers," said John, ignoring their hushed exchange and shaking the Doctor's hand. "And you are?"

"I'm the Doctor," said the Doctor.

John looked like he was waiting for the punchline, so Rose explained, "He's not teasing you. That's actually his name."

"No, it's not," said Sherlock, suddenly joining the conversation, "The two of you are listed as field agents, not researchers, and yet here you are in one of Torchwood's most remote storage rooms with an alien spacecraft that crashed, oh, sixty or seventy years ago in the Welsh countryside if I'm not mistaken. The only reason a specimen like this would be tossed into storage is because Torchwood doesn't know what to do with it. But you certainly do – judging by the toolkit on the hull and the stains on your clothing you've been doing more than simply studying it. You've been repairing it. So we've established that you have a better understanding of alien engineering than the best minds that Torchwood has been able to produce in the last several decades. I might believe that you'd been recruited from out of the country if it weren't for your accent. No, it's more likely that you are an extraterrestrial masquerading as a human. Making the reasonable assumption that your kind has their own language and naming conventions, it is inconceivable that your real name is, in fact, 'the Doctor.' Deduction? You've adopted a human profession as your name in order to ease your interactions with our species."

There were a few seconds of stunned silence all around before Rose said, "Well, I'm impressed. And I can see why Lisa hated you."

Sherlock handed her a sheaf of papers with a humorless smile. "You've been assigned to be my handler while I'm here. I'm confident that I'll manage to earn your hatred soon enough." 

Before Rose could answer, John raised his hand and said, "Wait. Back up just a bit. He's an alien?" He pointed at the Doctor incredulously.

"Well, sort of, but I don't like to brag," said the Doctor, looking pleased with himself.

The first paper in Rose's stack was a letter from Mycroft, which she flipped past without reading. Underneath was an intelligence packet. The first few lines stopped her dead in her tracks. "What is this?" she demanded, holding it up and halting all other conversation.

"Oh, er," said John, still processing Sherlock's deduction about the Doctor, "That's for you. They asked us to deliver it to you when we came in."

Rose was no longer concerned with the visitors. She had stopped wondering how Sherlock had pulled off his little trick. She scanned the report in her hands, words springing out at her and lodging themselves in her imagination. _UFO… Flight pattern indicates distress… Delta waves suggest time travel capabilities._

Time travel capabilities.

She handed the papers to the Doctor without a word. His eyes flicked over the first page for a few seconds before he looked back at Rose, startled. "Where's it landing?"

"Midwest United States," she answered. "And it looks like the landing might be closer to a crash."

Each held the other's gaze until Sherlock interrupted, "So, are we going on a field trip?"

Rose's mind was racing. It was all she could do to answer briskly, "This is classified."

"A small spacecraft of unknown origin is on a collision course with Nebraska," said Sherlock smugly. "If you care about keeping classified information classified, you shouldn't hand it out to visitors. Now, by the looks on your faces I'd say you have some ideas about what this particular spacecraft might be. You should really fill us in now. If you don't, I'll figure it out soon enough."

"Look," said Rose, reaching the end of her patience. "It's been fun, but your play date with Torchwood is over. We have work to do." She turned on her heel and began marching out of the room, saying to the Doctor, "We'll need to catch a plane… I mean airship… this afternoon if we'll have any chance of getting there in time. Do you think…"

Sherlock stopped her with a loud clearing of his throat. "I think you had better take another look at the letter from my brother," he said. "I am attached to you for the next week. Wherever you go, I go."

Rose whipped the letter back out and checked it. Sure enough, he was right. She was pretty sure that a trip to America was not what Mycroft had had in mind, but she had her orders and no time to dispute them. "Then you'd better get packed," she said. "Be at the airfield in three hours. If you're late, we'll leave without you."

When the intruders had gone, John scolding Sherlock gently for being confrontational, Rose and the Doctor rolled the useless ship back into its storage compartment and left to make some preparations of their own. On the long ride up the elevator, Rose broke the awkward silence. "You've been awfully quiet."

"You've been awfully tetchy," the Doctor replied. "I thought you would have been happy to have those two along. They have an impressive record. They might be helpful."

"I just don't want any distractions is all," Rose said.

The Doctor pressed his lips together. "Because of who you expect to find over there?" he said.

And there it was.

"It could be anybody," said Rose. "There are lots of people who can time-travel."

"But you've only got one on your mind," said the Doctor. "You think it's him. Me. The Doctor from this universe."

Rose didn't want to admit that that was exactly what she had been thinking, so she equivocated, "We've done the research. There's no evidence that the Doctor exists here at all. That _you_ exist here at all, I mean."

"And yet you still have them send you every report with even a mention of time travel in it," the Doctor challenged. "Even if it's not our jurisdiction."

"The Americans would only cock it up anyway," Rose mumbled.

"That's not what this is about," said the Doctor. "This is about me not being good enough for you. About you holding out for something better. The real thing."

"That's not what I'm doing!" Rose protested.

"Then why haven't you accepted my proposal?" said the Doctor, and suddenly Rose was staring very intently at the floor. "Marry me."

"Doctor…" She couldn't say yes. Things just weren't right yet. She wasn't ready, and he still wasn't quite himself. It wasn't that she was holding out for something better.

Was she?

"That's what I thought," said the Doctor, and he pounded the button to get off at the next floor.

Rose rode the rest of the way up to ground level alone with her thoughts. The first time she had kissed him at Bad Wolf Bay, she had thought the rest would come easy. But it hadn't. It had turned out that loving a human Doctor was somewhat more emotionally complicated than being assistant to a Time Lord.

She knew that she had it good. Her parents were both alive, and her brother was growing up strong. She had a job at Torchwood and her very own Doctor who was human enough to grow old with her. She had everything.

And yet she knew that if she arrived in Nebraska to find the TARDIS waiting for her, she would fly away in it without looking back.

\-----

"This is bullshit, you know that?"

Dean had known this was coming. No matter how many of them they made, long road trips never got any easier. After a couple of days in a car, switching seats every few hours so at least one person could sleep in the back, eating drive-through food, and not showering, everyone was on edge. Now they were on a lonely, dark stretch of road in the middle of the night with no civilization to be seen, and Sam had finally decided to speak up.

"What's your problem?" Dean sighed, trying to keep his voice down. He tilted the rearview mirror to make sure Cas was still asleep in the back seat. Cas had taken the last shift, driving for six hours straight. He deserved the rest. And ever since Stull Cemetery, he actually needed it. 

After Sam had averted the apocalypse, Cas had come back with just enough angelic mojo to revive Bobby and pull Sam out of the cage. After sleeping for about a week (during which time Dean was going out of his mind with worry), he had woken up almost completely human. He still had flashes of power – a little healing here and there, some smiting if there was no other option – but it took a lot out of him and it wasn't very reliable anyway. There had been nothing left to do but teach him how to shoot and let him come along in the Impala.

Of course, it hadn't been that simple. Somewhere along the way Dean and Cas had fallen into each other, and the more Dean tried to run away from his feelings the more he found himself running into Cas's arms. Finally the dam had broken and the truth had spilled irresistibly out: Dean was in love with Cas. And then Dean had suddenly found himself in the terrifying position of having not one, but two people who he could not live without.

"By the time we get there, that vampire nest is going to be long gone," said Sam. "I know you love driving, but the car just isn't fast enough." 

"We're less than a day out," Dean said. "The nest is in Georgia, and we're in… what? Wyoming? Or are we in Nebraska now? Whatever. We're almost there."

Sam swiped a hand over his face. "But we started in Oregon," he whined, "On these cross-country trips we should really just take an airship."

Dean squirmed in his seat at the mere mention. "Not happening," was all he said.

"Come on, Dean," said Sam, "The new ones are huge. If you stay away from the windows, you'd never know you were in the air."

"I'd know," Dean said. "Besides, how would we get the Impala over there with us?"

"We could have left it on the West coast," said Sam, "And then come back for it when the job was done."

Dean shot Sam a warning glance. "I'm not leaving my baby anywhere," he said. "I've got everything I need right here, and I'm not letting any of it out of my sight."

"Great," Sam sighed, leaning back in his seat as comfortably as he could manage. "Then I guess we'll just keep doing these days-long road trips through the ass-end of nowhere where nothing interesting ever happens. Ever." 

The whole car shook as the field beside the road suddenly exploded in a shower of dirt clods and grass.

"SON OF A BITCH!" Dean shouted. He jerked the wheel away from the impact, then overcorrected. They spun into the shoulder. The car jerked to a stop as the last of the debris fell back to earth. Everything was silent except for the sound of Sam and Dean’s startled panting.

"What was that?" asked a sleepy voice from the backseat. Castiel sat up, holding his head where it had bumped the car door during their spin-out.

"Hell if I know," said Sam, visibly shaken. All three of them looked over at the field with its fresh, smoking crater. "You know, if we were normal people, we would just keep on driving. Away. Fast." 

"Too bad we've never been normal," Dean sighed. "Better go check it out." He opened the door and stood on legs that were wobbly from disuse and adrenaline. Sam and Cas soon joined him, stretching their legs and eyeing the field suspiciously. Cas pulled his trenchcoat out from under the seat and put it on over the AC/DC shirt he was wearing. Since becoming human, he had traded in the suit for jeans and t-shirts stolen from Dean's wardrobe, but he still loved that damn coat.

Each of them grabbed a weapon from the trunk before venturing into the field.

Sam started to rush forward, but Dean stopped him with a hand on his wrist. "Hold up," he said. "We don't know what's in there. You two just stay behind me, okay?" Sam rolled his eyes, but he humored Dean by stepping back. Cas obediently stepped back and left, covering Dean with his shotgun.

The three of them inched closer to the crater and peered inside, their weapons at the ready. A silver ship was nestled in the smoking hole dug by its own impact. It was clearly damaged – there were burns and scrapes all over it, and circuitry was visible where panels had been lifted and torn - but it appeared mostly intact. It didn't look like anything Dean had ever seen before. Coupled with the fact that it had fallen from the sky…

Sam, following Dean's train of thought, began whistling the theme to The Twilight Zone while Cas stared blankly.

"It's not a UFO, you dumbass," said Dean. 

"How do you know?" said Sam. "It's starting to look like a pretty good possibility."

"Cause," said Dean, "Aliens don't exist."

Cas piped up, "Of course they do," earning stares from both Winchesters. He didn't elaborate.

"Uh," said Dean, trying to figure out what to do with that information. "Whatever. But this is probably just an experimental aircraft or something. Someone should go check if there's a pilot. They might be hurt."

Sam laughed. "Dude, there is no way I'm climbing down into that hole and opening up the creepy alien spaceship."

Luckily, he didn't have to. At that moment, a door opened in the side of the ship and a figure staggered out in a cloud of smoke and sparks. As the smoke cleared, Dean got a better look at what appeared to be a handsome man in a long coat. The man coughed, sighed deeply, and gave a soft whistle while looking back at the remains of his ship. Then he looked up at the lip of the crater where three firearms were pointed at his face.

He smiled, seeming less interested in the guns than in the men holding them. "Is this my welcoming committee?" said the stranger cheerfully. "I think I like this planet already."

Sam grinned. "Alien," he said. "Told you." After a moment, he shrugged and lowered his gun. 

"Careful!" Dean muttered as Sam knelt and offered his hand to the man in the crater. 

"Thanks," said the stranger. He took the proffered hand and scrambled out of the pit with Sam's assistance. Once on solid ground, he dusted off his coat and smiled. "Well, it was nice to meet the locals, but I've got to run."

"I don't think so, buddy," said Dean. "We've got a few questions for you. And by 'a few' I mean 'a lot.' And by 'a lot' I mean 'Are you an alien?'" 

The stranger clicked his tongue in disappointment. "I'd really love to stay and chat." He paused to let his eyes sweep Sam's body from head to toe before he continued, "I really, really would. But when I say 'I've got to run' I mean 'I've got to run.' I didn't crash here by accident. There's something on my tail, and I'd hate to get a cute bunch of civilians like you mixed up in all this."

"We're not civilians!" Dean protested, but the stranger was already fiddling with a device strapped to his wrist.

"Sure you're not," said the stranger as he continued to press buttons. "Take care now."

"Hey, wait a minute…" said Sam, reaching out to put his hand on the stranger's arm. 

As soon as hand touched sleeve there was a quiet noise like radio static. An instant later, both Sam and the stranger were gone.

There was a moment of stunned silence while Dean tried to figure out what had just happened. He jerked his head around toward Cas, but he looked just as confused as Dean felt. They both slowly turned back to the spot where Sam had been just a moment before, staring as if they expected him to come back at any moment.

When he didn't, Dean's confusion quickly spiraled into abject terror. "SAM?" he screamed into the darkness. "SAM!"

There was no answer.

\-----

It wasn't so bad having Sherlock and John along, Rose had decided. It was impossible not to like John, and the Doctor seemed to have hit it off with Sherlock nicely. They'd babbled at each other all the way over the Atlantic.

"You know," John had said to Rose as he peeked back at their companions, "Sherlock won't usually listen to someone for that long without interrupting or correcting them. I think he likes having someone to talk to who's as smart as he is."

"Keeping an eye on your boyfriend, are you?" Rose had teased, eyes crinkling as she smiled.

John had whipped around to look at her as he protested, "Why does everyone think we're dating?"

"Maybe because you've spent half the flight turned around backwards in your chair so you can see him," Rose had good-naturedly replied.

Now they were barreling down a dusty road in Nebraska at an alarming speed. The Doctor had never quite gotten used to driving cars. After spending so much time flying the TARDIS, he must have found cars terribly dull. Rose wondered if that was why he seemed unable to stop fiddling with the dials, turning the radio and windshield wipers on and off, and pushing the speedometer needle into the red.

Their vehicle was a nondescript white van that had been waiting for them when they'd gotten off the airship, courtesy of Torchwood. The Doctor and Sherlock had installed themselves in the two front seats, while Rose and John sat in the spacious back along with their supplies: some United States money, some food, and a truly impressive array of weapons.

John had been studying some of the firearms, trying to distract himself from the Doctor's terrifying driving. "I've never even seen half of these," he said.

"You never know what you're going to find when you go to intercept a crash," Rose explained. "Torchwood likes us to be prepared for anything."

They had been driving for a few hours when a sudden stop jerked everyone hard in their seats. "Did we hit something?" John shouted.

"No," said Sherlock, turning around in the passenger seat and looking entirely unshaken by their wild ride. "We've arrived." 

"And we're not the first ones," said the Doctor, pointing to the vintage car parked clumsily by the side of the road. 

The Doctor and Sherlock bounded out of the van to inspect the intruding vehicle. John and Rose exchanged a look, and both armed themselves before climbing out the back. John grabbed a familiar-looking handgun. Rose opted for something that looked like a tazer with too many buttons.

The car, which proved to be a beautiful old Chevy Impala, was empty. Rose didn't think it was worth a second look, but Sherlock scuttled around it and peered from every angle before finally popping the trunk open and flipping up the false bottom. John gave a low whistle. The trunk was overflowing with weapons of every kind. 

By the soft light of the rising sun Rose could see the silhouettes of two men out in the middle of a nearby field. One was as still as a statue while the other paced frantically around the periphery of a large crater. Rose approached them, waving at the others to follow her. 

"Hello!" Rose called out cheerfully. "This area is now under the jurisdiction of Torchwood. If you could just step away from the crater, please?"

Both men turned to look at her. The one in a trenchcoat stared at her, a puzzled expression on his face. The other, a broad-shouldered man in layers of plaid, stomped toward her while pulling an official-looking badge out of his pocket and holding it up. "Sorry, but you've been out-jurisdictioned. Get lost." 

But the man in the trenchcoat was already moving to intercept his companion. "Dean," he said. "These people might be able to help us." 

"Look, I'm Rose Tyler," Rose explained. "I'm from Torchwood. We deal with this kind of thing all the time. And if you'd just let me look at what's behind you, I'm sure we can sort everything out." She was already less than hopeful about what she would find. She had never known the TARDIS to land so roughly as to leave a crater.

The man in plaid still didn't exactly look happy to have her there, but he stepped aside. "Be my guest."

As Rose slipped past him, her companions spoke up. "Hello! I'm the Doctor!" said the Doctor. He followed Rose toward the lip of the crater.

"Doctor John Watson," said John. Then, since Sherlock was too busy curiously studying the trenchcoated man to notice that niceties were being exchanged, John added on his behalf, "And this is Sherlock Holmes."

"I'm Dean Winchester," said the man in plaid. "This is Castiel, my boyfriend." He said the last word – boyfriend – just a little too loudly, as if daring someone to say something about it. No one did. "Look, I don't know what you people are doing here, but a spaceman just crashed here and zapped my brother someplace. If Torchwood - whatever that is - knows anything about this, you'd better tell me right goddamn now." 

Rose was about to say that it didn't sound like the Doctor to kidnap someone when she finally got a good look at what was in the crater. Instead of the little blue box she had been expecting, there was a banged-up silver ship.

The Doctor was beside her, staring down at it with equal surprise. "It's not the TARDIS," he said.

"I noticed," Rose sighed, trying to hide her disappointment. "But it looks sort of familiar, doesn't it?"

"It's a Chula warship," said the Doctor. "Do we know anyone who flies a Chula warship?"

Then, simultaneously, it came to them. They stared at each other for a beat, their mouths hanging open, before Rose turned back to Dean Winchester. "Did he, um…" she said. "Did the spaceman happen to mention his name?"

"Yeah, right before he offered us a cup of tea," said Dean sarcastically. "No! He just took my brother and fucked off!"

"Did he wear a long coat?" said the Doctor. 

Dean looked about ready to punch someone. "Are we playing twenty questions or…"

"Yes," Castiel interrupted. "He wore a coat."

"That means nothing," said Sherlock offhandedly. "Three out of the six of us are wearing long coats." He was still staring at Castiel so intensely that Rose was somewhat surprised to find that he had been following the conversation at all. Castiel stared back, unblinking. Dean shuffled between the two of them, but it didn't seem to make a difference.

Then it came to Rose. "Did he flirt with you?" she asked.

"What?" said Dean.

"Yes," said Castiel calmly. "Unless I am mistaken. Based on what you've taught me, Dean, his body language and intonation indicated that he was sexually attracted to all three of us. The direction of his gaze was particularly focused on Sam."

Dean looked like he wished he could un-hear that. Rose and the Doctor caught each other's eye and said in unison, "Jack."

Before Rose could decide whether this was a good thing or a bad thing, Dean's cell phone rang. He yanked it out of his pocket and bellowed into it, "Sammy?" Whatever he heard at the other end made all the tension melt out of his body as he laughed in helpless relief. "What the hell happened?" he demanded. "It's been over an hour! I was scared out of my mind!"

"Is he with Jack?" Rose whispered in Dean's ear.

"Put it on speaker phone," the Doctor requested, popping up on Dean's other side.

Dean swatted them both away. "Private conversation!" he said.

"Not if it can help us find this Jack person," John pointed out, but Dean ignored him.

Then Castiel placed a hand on Dean's arm. "I would like to hear what Sam has to say," he said quietly. Dean took one look at his face, sighed, and put the phone on speaker.

"…in Hong Kong, Dean," Sam was saying, "Hong Kong! I've been trying to get this guy to send me back, but he won't."

Then a different voice spoke up in the background. It was quieter and less distinct, but it was unmistakably Captain Jack Harkness. "It's not that I won't," he said. "I can't. Do you think I meant to end up halfway around the planet?"

Rose couldn't stop herself from calling out, "Hi, Jack! It's Rose and the Doctor!" before she remembered that this Jack would have no idea who she was.

Sure enough, both Jack's and Sam's voices answered, "Who?"

Dean tried to explain, "I think they're kind of like hunters, only with aliens. I dunno. Think Mulder and Scully with British accents." 

"Dude, you called the Men in Black on this guy?" said Sam. 

Dean frowned at the phone impatiently. "Okay, three things. One, Mulder and Scully are X-Files, not MIB. Two, I didn't call them; they just showed up. Three, what the hell are you complaining about? You were just abducted! Maybe we want the Men in Black on our side!"

"I don't want this getting out of hand. He doesn't seem like a bad guy," said Sam. "He just wants to fix his ship and get out of here."

Dean muttered, "Great. Why doesn't he?"

Jack spoke up again, louder this time, "Because I'm stranded on the wrong continent, genius."

"You got yourself there, didn't you?" Dean shouted into the phone. "Just bring Sam back and then you can go do whatever you want!"

"Well, not _whatever_ he wants," the Doctor pointed out. "We'd kind of like for him to come with us." Everyone had gravitated toward the conversation, and now the six of them stood huddled around Dean's phone.

"Are you not listening?" said Jack. His voice was now clear enough that Rose was certain he had taken the phone away from Sam. "My vortex manipulator dropped me off about ten thousand miles away from my destination. If it's randomizing my location whenever I use it, then I can't risk activating it again."

Sherlock leaned into the circle of bodies, steadying himself with a hand on John's shoulder, and said, "It can't be truly random. If that were the case, the chances of you reappearing on Earth at ground level would be astronomically low. More likely you would have ended up inside a mountain, or in orbit. Or in another galaxy, for that matter."

"What's a vortex manipulator?" John muttered to Sherlock. He looked a bit dazed at the recent developments, but he seemed resigned to accept any new oddity that might be thrown his way.

"Clearly it's some sort of teleportation device," Sherlock sighed. "Do try to keep up."

"It's more than that," said the Doctor, edging closer to the phone. "With enough power, you can use it to travel through time."

Jack said, "Actually, it looks like the time travel function got knocked out in the crash, but…" There was a pause before he continued, "Wait, how did you know that? Who are you?"

"What?" said the Doctor indignantly. "I'm the Doctor! And that should answer both your questions." He had one hand on the phone now, angling it toward his mouth.

"Well, sorry," said Jack sarcastically. "But how am I supposed to keep your names straight when I can't even see which of you is hot?"

The Doctor snatched up the phone, ignoring Dean's protests, and began to speak very quickly into it. "It sounds like your planar distortion dampener got shaken loose," he said. "That's what’s mucking with your navigation. The damage probably activated your orbital failsafe, which is keeping you from leaving the planet. The reason you didn't end up underground or at the bottom of the sea is because your matter summation prevention safety system is still working. So there shouldn't be any real danger in using it again, even though the chances of you hitting your programmed destination are… let me see, with the distortion levels in this sector… somewhere in the low thousandths of a percent."

"Well, what do you know? A man who can talk tech!" said Jack, his voice suddenly dropping an octave and taking on a playful tone. "Have I introduced myself? Captain Jack Harkness."

"Yes, we know," said Rose. "Don't ask how. Long story."

"Gimme that!" Dean shouted as he retrieved his phone from the Doctor. Then, to Jack, "How long will it take you to fix it?"

"I can't," said Jack.

"What do you mean you can't?!"

"Hey, I'm a field agent, not an engineer."

The Doctor raised his hand tentatively. "I can fix it," he said. 

"Doctor, you are my new favorite person," said Jack. "How can we…"

Jack was cut off mid-sentence, and for a few seconds all that could be heard over the phone was rustling and indignant voices as Sam wrestled the phone back from him. Finally, Sam said, "You mean we're going to have to keep pushing the 'random' button on this thing until it happens to take us somewhere near where we started?" He sounded less than pleased.

"Again, it's not random. There are numerous systems in place that are narrowing down your possible destinations," the Doctor explained. "But essentially, yes."

"To hell with that," said Sam. "Dean, just come and get me."

Dean blanched noticeably. "What, you mean like… fly?" he gulped. "You know, maybe that vortex thingamajig will work. I mean, all you need to do is get back to North America, and then I can drive to you."

Jack's voice made a reappearance as he said cheerfully, "Sounds good to me. We'll keep hopping around until we get close, Sammy gets reunited with his hunky friends, the Doctor fixes my vortex manipulator, I get out of here before certain parties catch up with me, and everyone's happy." As he spoke, Rose could barely make out computerized beeps and the whir of electronics in the background.

Sam said, "You don't get to call me Sammy. Hey, what are you doing with…" And then the line went dead.

\-----

Sam barely managed to grab onto Jack again before the vortex manipulator flashed to life and the lights of Hong Kong were replaced by a desolate, rocky landscape. 

The change was so abrupt that Sam stumbled. It took him a moment to right himself on the uneven rocks. For as far as Sam could see, the ground looked like a slab of stone that had been broken into jutting, overlapping pieces. Lichen filled the spaces between the rocks, and there were a few patches of snow. 

"Is this your country?" Jack asked, surveying the desolate view. "It's been a while since I last visited this planet."

"Um, maybe?" said Sam. "It's kind of a big place. But I don't see any roads, so Dean wouldn't be able to get to us anyway. Let's keep going."

Jack obliged by linking arms with Sam and pushing a sequence of buttons on his vortex manipulator. A second later, they both yelped as they splashed down into icy water.

Sam surfaced, spitting salt water. A quick glance around showed no land anywhere in sight. He grabbed Jack's wrist to try to hold the vortex manipulator above the swells as they both treaded against the roll of the ocean. "Try again!" Sam gurgled through the waves slapping him in the face.

They jumped again, this time landing on blessed solid ground. After he had spat out the worst of the salt water and caught his breath, Sam noticed the sound of cars. Sure enough, when he turned around he saw that they were standing just outside a small city. "Thank God!" he said. "People! Let's go ask where we've landed."

They didn't have to walk far before they reached a road running out of the city. Sam flagged down a car and got the old man inside to roll down his window. The man looked very confused as Sam asked, "This might be a weird question, but can you tell us where we are?"

"¿Por què estàs mojado?" said the man. That was a bad sign.

"Let me handle this," said Jack, nudging Sam out of the way."This might be a weird question, but can you tell us where we are?"

The man's face lit up. "¿Tuviste una noche loca, no?" he said, chuckling, "Estàis en Zapala."

Jack glanced at Sam, saw that he was clearly lost, and turned back to the man. "Uh, Zapala?"

The man began laughing almost uncontrollably. "Zapala, Argentina!" he clarified. "¿Aùn estàs emborrachado?"

"I wish," said Jack with a laugh. "Thanks." And he waved the old man off.

"How did you do that?" Sam demanded.

Jack shook his head. "It's not much use traveling through time and space if you can't communicate with the locals when you get there," he said smugly.

Sam ignored the part of his mind that was boggling at the technological marvel of a universal translator. Instead, he said, "So, did I hear that we're in Argentina?"

"Yep," said Jack, "That's kind of the right land mass, isn't it?"

Sam shook his head. "Too far away. Let's roll the dice one more time."

The vortex dumped them into hot sand next, and this time there was no civilization in sight. Sam could see nothing but golden dunes in every direction.

"Maybe we should have stayed in Hong Kong," Sam grumbled.

Jack flopped into the sand, letting the scorching sun begin to dry his clothes. "This isn't so bad."

"Yeah, well, this isn't exactly what I had in mind for my day," said Sam, but he sat down beside Jack to try to enjoy the sun. There was sand in his shoes already. Lovely.

Jack sighed contentedly. "If I were traveling with buddies like yours," he said, "The only thing I would have in mind is a hot three-way."

Sam almost coughed up a lung, and it didn't have anything to do with the salt water he had inhaled. "That was my brother and his boyfriend," he sputtered. "So stop smiling like that."

"Like what?" said Jack, still wearing a smirk.

"Like you're imagining them both naked," said Sam.

"Would you rather I imagine you naked?"

Sam didn't dignify that with an answer.

After a several minutes of silence, Jack said, "At least all this jumping around might make it harder for that thing to find me."

"What thing?" said Sam, lifting his head out of the sand.

"Well, I didn't crash on my own," said Jack. "I'm not that incompetent. I was on my way to Earth when something got on my ship. I couldn't see it, but it made a mess of my controls."

"What was it?" asked Sam. Spaceman or no, this was starting to sound like something up the Winchesters' alley.

"I said I couldn't see it," said Jack. "But I've run across weirder things out in the black, so I'm not too worried. I'd just like to get my ship up and running before it finds me again. Or if I have to deal with it, I at least want a working vortex manipulator."

Before he could think better of it, Sam said, "Maybe we can help you. It's kind of what we do."

"Oh, don't worry your pretty little sideburns about me," Jack said as he stood and stretched. "I've got everything under control. Now, shall we?" He offered his hand to Sam. Sam only hesitated for a moment before taking it.

"At least we're dry now," said Sam as Jack reactivated the vortex manipulator.

They rematerialized in the ocean again.

\-----

With nowhere better to go, the Torchwood group along with Dean and Castiel had retreated to an abandoned farmhouse not far from the crash site. There they waited for any news from Sam and Jack.

Sherlock was enjoying himself. As expected, the trip so far had been full of interesting puzzles to solve. It was a pity that there wasn't a murder at the center of it all, but Sherlock tried not to complain. Even though a good murder would have been much more fun to solve than a simple UFO crash.

Rose and the Doctor were seated on a ratty old couch in the main room. Sherlock might have joined them there if he hadn't already identified three species of insect and four species of mold on its fabric. Instead he perched on a wooden stool that was in serious danger of toppling at any second. John leaned against the wall just behind him.

Dean had started out by pacing back and forth across the room. Eventually he had taken to standing with his arms crossed, and finally he had sunk down to sit on the floor against the wall. The entire time, Castiel had stood preternaturally still and straight. His only movement had been to track Dean's nervous progress around the room with his eyes.

Castiel was interesting, to say the least. There was still something Sherlock hadn't quite figured out about him.

Dean dug his thumbs into his eyes as he said slowly, "So let me get this straight. Blondie is human. Hair-boy is the human clone of an alien. You're both from Torchwood. Which is from England. And you hunt aliens. And you're here because the alien who took my brother… You knew him. From… when you used to live… in a different dimension." He pouted his lips and nodded approvingly. "Well, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard." 

"We don't actually _hunt_ aliens so much as make contact with potential allies and neutralize threats," said Rose. "But that's the short version, yes."

Dean took a deep breath, laughed, and said, "You know what? I actually believe you. I mean, it's not like I can say that your story's too crazy. I'm the guy who hunts demons for a living and helped start the Apocalypse."

At that, Sherlock perked up. "What sort of Apocalypse?" he demanded. "Judeo-Christian? Norse? Thermonuclear?"

Dean stared at Sherlock as if he might be an alien too. "Uh," said Dean. "The first one."

Sherlock nodded. "That explains it." He didn't say what it explained. John began picking at his sleeve in the way that he sometimes did when Sherlock was breaking some social norm. Sherlock looked at him questioningly, but John only shook his head. Apparently, whatever Sherlock's transgression, it wasn't severe enough to require John to speak up.

Castiel was squinting at Sherlock and John. "You are all from this other dimension?" he asked.

"Well, no," said John. "The two of us aren't. We're not even Torchwood, technically."

Castiel tipped his head slightly. "Then what are you?"

"Consulting detective," said Sherlock quickly.

John shrugged, smiled, and said, "Blogger."

Dean opened his mouth to ask something, but then closed it and turned back to Rose and the Doctor. Apparently he could only deal with one set of confusions at a time. "So what's your game?" he said suspiciously. "You gonna take this guy back to your lab and experiment on him?"

Rose looked offended. "We don't do that!" she said. "He's an old friend. We just want to see him."

"And steal his vortex manipulator," said Sherlock. All eyes were suddenly on him. "Oh, come now. You didn't know the alien's identity until you saw the ship. You're only here because the report indicated time travel abilities. Clearly that's what you've been after all along."

"We don't steal," said Rose testily.

"I'd steal it," said the Doctor.

Rose turned, looking at the Doctor with disgust. "He's our friend!" she protested.

"No, he isn't," said the Doctor. "He doesn't even know who we are. And we could use the vortex manipulator. It'd be almost like having a little mini-TARDIS, although admittedly far less sexy."

Rose just frowned and shook her head. "Sometimes I think I don't even know who _you_ are," she muttered.

"Your only way of finding this Jack person is by following us when we eventually go to Sam," Castiel pointed out. "Without us, you have no way of contacting him and he has no reason to contact you. And if we allow you to find him, you will rob him of a valuable possession." He turned to Dean. "Remind me again why we are working with them." 

Dean smiled devlishly. "That's a good point," he said, "Especially since, without them, we'd have a shot at getting that vortex modulator for ourselves." 

The Doctor's face darkened. "Manipulator," he corrected. "And you have no idea the damage you could do with a time travel device and no proper training in how to use it."

"Yeah, sure," said Dean, his smile only growing. "I'm shaking in my boots." 

There was a tense silence before John spoke up. "If I'm not mistaken, that Jack fellow mentioned something about trying to keep someone from catching up with him. There might be more going on here than we realize. I think it's better that we stick together for now. Safety in numbers, after all."

The Doctor brightened. "That's right. You need us just as much as we need you. You clearly don't know the first thing about aliens."

"You clearly don't know the first thing about… anything," Dean muttered sulkily. 

"For that matter," said Rose, "How do we know we can trust you? You say you're hunters, whatever that means, but all we know for sure is that you have a trunk full of weapons and holy water." 

"Would it help to know that Castiel is actually a fallen angel?" said Sherlock nonchalantly.

Once again, everyone turned to stare at him incredulously. Castiel and Dean exchanged a puzzled look.

Sherlock continued, "I deduced that he had been long removed from human society based on his unusual mannerisms, but it took me a little while to figure out exactly what he was. I considered demon, but the intact devil's trap on the ceiling of the Impala made that highly unlikely. It wasn't until you mentioned the Apocalypse that I put it together."

John cleared his throat and put a hand on Sherlock's shoulder. "Sherlock," he said. "Do you know that broadcasting people's secrets tends to make them angry?" His voice sounded strained, but Sherlock couldn't see why.

"Yes."

"We are currently in an abandoned farmhouse in the middle of nowhere _in America_ with four people that we just met today," John said in a deliberately calm voice. "Three of them are currently armed."

"So?"

John removed his hand from Sherlock's shoulder and placed it over his own eyes.

Dean stood, shaking his head dazedly. "I'm gonna get some fresh air," he said as he stomped toward the door, brushing past Sherlock on his way out. 

John glared reproachfully at Sherlock. 

"What did I do?" Sherlock said innocently.

Rose leaned forward, studying Sherlock and John. "Are you sure you two aren't dating?" she said.

\-----

Castiel was one step behind Dean as he stormed out of the farmhouse. "Dean, wait!" he called. 

Dean didn't stop until he reached the Impala. He leaned against the driver-side door, arms folded over his chest. "This sucks," he grunted when Castiel was close enough to hear.

Castiel linked his arm with Dean's, leaning beside him, as he said, "It is not an ideal situation, but we've been through worse. It might make it easier if you would try not to antagonize our new acquaintances."

"I'm not antagonizing anyone!" Dean protested.

Castiel raised an eyebrow. "You threatened to steal something very valuable from them," he pointed out.

Dean opened his mouth as if he were about to argue further, but then he caught Castiel's eyes and the fight went out of him. "I wasn't serious about that," he admitted. "I'm just worried about Sam."

"He has contacted us," said Castiel. "He doesn't seem to be in any immediate danger."

Dean tilted his head, unconvinced. "Yeah, well," he muttered, "I'll relax when I've got him back."

They stood like that, leaning up against each other ever so slightly, for several minutes. Castiel could still feel the worry radiating off of Dean. Finally he offered, "Would you like me to help take your mind off of the situation?"

"What…" Dean started to ask, but then he looked at Castiel and got the hint. "Wow. Have I turned you into that much of a sex fiend?" 

"It always seems to cheer you up," said Castiel, already dropping to his knees and undoing Dean's fly.

Dean blew out a long, slow breath. "I'm a terrible brother," he said. He didn't sound sorry.

"But a wonderful boyfriend," Castiel added before going to work.

\-----

Meg was kind of in love.

It wasn't that he had brought her in on this beautiful scheme. It wasn't that he had given her access to enough souls to supercharge her powers to ridiculous levels. It wasn't even the suit, although that was sexy.

Mostly, it was how intense he got when he was really pissed off.

" _You let him get away?_ " he bellowed, looking for all the world like steam was about to come out of his ears. Or maybe like he was about to dismember the entire population of a small city; Meg couldn't tell. Once again: sexy.

She kept her voice nonchalant as she replied, "Space travel is hard. You're lucky I brought him down on the right planet. As for afterwards, well, how was I supposed to know that the Winchesters were coming down that road?"

"So you backed off your prey because you were scared of a couple of stupid, inbred, hick American hunters?" he hissed.

"Hey," said Meg. "You'd hesitate too, if you'd tangled with them before. They have a way of throwing a wrench into plans that you thought were wrench-proof."

In an instant his rage cooled to a deadly serious calm. Meg straightened. As cute as he was when he was mad, Meg didn't take it lightly when he threatened to take her apart organ by organ and leave her skin for the birds. Unlike other men who had made her similar promises she kind of thought this one might not be talking out his ass. So she listened when he said, "After the down payment of souls that I gave you, I expect results."

"Relax," she said, wiping the mocking smile off her face. "I burned most of the soul-power you gave me just taking his ship down, and I've been using up the rest trying to keep up with them while they leap-frog around the globe. It's not good strategy. If you want me to have any juice left at all when we take them on, you'll wait for them to stay in one place. Then I'll take you straight to them."

"That's what I like to hear."

Meg shuddered. She might kind of love this guy, but she had no illusions about him. She loved him the way she might have loved a snake that could turn and bite her at any moment. Beautiful, but not to be trusted. 

Not that she trusted anyone, anyway.

\-----

Rose and John had wandered around to the back of the farmhouse, leaving Sherlock and the Doctor in the shabby living room to pass the time together. The Doctor sank deeper into the filthy couch with each passing second. For a man who once controlled the very fabric of time, waiting was something of an unwelcome nuisance.

"Bored," the Doctor announced.

"I truly sympathize," Sherlock muttered as he fiddled with a cell phone, flipping it into the air and tossing it between his hands.

The Doctor squinted at it as it flew. "That's not the same phone you had before," he said.

"It's Winchester's," Sherlock explained. "It fell out of his pocket as he left."

"No, it didn't," said the Doctor. "I would have noticed."

Sherlock grinned. "Very well. If you want me to be precise, I nicked it."

"Well done, then," said the Doctor. "Trying to deduce more about him?"

"Oh, I already deduced most of what I needed to know about him from his car and his clothing," said Sherlock, giving the phone a final flip before setting it on a three-legged table. "I stole the phone mostly just to annoy him."

They sat in silence a while longer before the Doctor huffed a sigh and said, "I should go after Rose."

"Why?" Sherlock asked. "She seemed perfectly happy to go off and gossip with John."

"Because she's cross with me," said the Doctor. "I should go… I dunno. Make it right."

"How do you propose to do that?"

"Good point," said the Doctor, flopping over on the couch and hanging his feet over the back so that his head was pointed down. "I suppose I should start with figuring out why she's angry."

Sherlock pulled out his own phone and fiddled with it while he spoke. "I thought that much was obvious. She's figured out that you don't quite measure up to the original version, and she's becoming disillusioned."

Anyone else might have socked Sherlock in the nose. The Doctor just sighed. "But then, how do I win her back over?"

Sherlock's head flinched backwards so violently that several extra chins formed beneath the first. "You're asking me for relationship advice?" he said dubiously. "I would tell you that you're asking the wrong person, but that's something of an understatement."

The Doctor chose to ignore Sherlock in favor of rambling. "Well, I suppose I know the problem. We thought it would work because, well, we're perfect for each other. She's _Rose_. And I'm part me, part my ninth incarnation, and part Donna. We ought to get along splendidly. But I'm also something else, something neither of us really thought about, and that's _stuck_."

"On Earth, you mean," said Sherlock, the squint of his eyes belying the fact that he was actually having trouble keeping up with the Doctor's train of thought.

"Yes, on Earth," the Doctor went on. "It ruins everything. It makes me angry, and that's not who Rose fell in love with." He sighed despondently. "I honestly thought I'd be happy here, but when I remember what I used be able to do, what I used to _be!_ To go from dancing through space-time and being practically immortal to… this…" He gestured at his body, still draped upside down on the couch. "How can I make a human understand? It's as if you were living your life quite happily, and suddenly you find out that you've only got a month to live. And you're going to be stuck in a breadbox the whole time."

Sherlock clearly would have preferred to have been having any other conversation than this one, but he gamely said, "Perhaps Rose feels the same way."

"Oh, I know how Rose feels," said the Doctor, who had managed to work himself into a fierce sulk. "She feels like someone who thought she was going to spend the rest of her life with a man who could take her anywhere in time and space, only to find out that he has one month to live and is stuck in a breadbox."

Sherlock stared until the Doctor rolled his eyes and added, "Figuratively."

"Once again," said Sherlock, "I'm a detective, not a relationship counselor. If you want romantic advice then you should ask John."

"Oh, so he's the romantic one in the relationship, is he?" said the Doctor.

"What relationship is that?" asked Sherlock, genuinely curious.

"I thought…" said the Doctor. "You two are kind of… you know."

Sherlock apparently knew well enough, because instead of continuing in confusion he requested, "Cite your evidence."

The Doctor smirked, his mood somewhat repaired. "Oh, I don't need to be a genius detective to figure that out."

"Your skills of deduction need work," said Sherlock. "I have no interest in carrying on a sexual relationship with anyone. Not even John."

The Doctor shrugged. "What does sex have to do with anything?"

Sherlock steepled his fingers and was silent as he digested that observation.

\-----

John was glad to get a moment alone with Rose. He would have preferred to get Sherlock alone, if only to demand a few dozen explanations for the things that had happened since they had faced down Mycroft back in London, but as fond as he was of Sherlock the man was his own brand of exhausting. With Rose, he could take a deep breath and try to sort things out on his own.

"How are you holding up, John?" said Rose, looking at him with a sympathetic-but-amused smile. She was sitting on the steps up to the back porch.

John was pacing back and forth in front of her, passing in and out of the light of the rising sun. Unlike Sherlock's manic strides, John's pacing was slow and deliberate, each step measured. Rose's question made him lose his rhythm, but he didn't care. It was nice to have someone normal enough to notice that he felt like he was losing his mind.

"It's…" he said. "Well, it's a lot to take in all at once."

"You're not wrong," she replied. "Aliens. Other dimensions. Time travel. And now even angels."

John laughed helplessly. "It sounds ridiculous when you say it all at once. I didn't know about any of it before yesterday."

"You're taking it quite well."

"I am, aren't I?" John had been comparing his reaction to the rest of the group, but now that he took into account the fact that everyone else had started with at least some basic knowledge about the supernatural elements at play, he decided to give himself credit for holding together as well as he had. He found that his urge to pace had waned. He sat next to Rose on the steps. "I suppose that's down to Sherlock," he said. "Following him around, I see the strangest things every day. I've almost gotten used to taking it all in stride. Because he always knows what he's doing – or, God help me, at least he acts like it. I don't know. It's just something about him that makes the extraordinary seem possible, or even like it's to be expected. If anyone else had told me that aliens exist, I'd have said they were daft. He tells me, and I'm following him to Torchwood within the hour. And then to America. And then to… oh, who the hell knows? Probably the ends of the Earth."

John caught Rose staring at him with a giant, beaming smile on her face. He rested his head on one hand with a self-deprecating chuckle. "I'm not making any sense, am I?"

"You're making perfect sense," said Rose, her fond smile only growing. "Believe me when I tell you I know exactly what you mean."

John twitched an eye at her as he caught her meaning. "He's not my boyfriend," he repeated himself.

"Why the hell not?" Rose replied. 

Just then, the door behind them slammed open. Sherlock stood in the doorframe, waving a cell phone. John would have liked to answer Rose, but he couldn't stop himself from noticing, "That's not your phone."

"What?" Sherlock chirped. "Oh. No, it's not. Sam Winchester called back. Let's go!"

"Is he still with Jack?" Rose asked, leaping to her feet. "Are they back in the States?"

Sherlock turned and swept back into the house without a backwards glance, expecting John and Rose to follow him. They did. As he walked, Sherlock said, "Yes and yes. They're three hours away. Two and a half, if you let the Doctor drive again. We should leave immediately. The race is on!"

"Why are we racing?" John asked, jumping forward to walk beside Sherlock. As they passed through the main room, the Doctor joined them.

"Not each other," said Sherlock. "Our shadowy enemy. Whatever it was that caused our dear Captain Jack to crash, it isn't likely to be sitting around twiddling its thumbs now that its prey is stationary, is it?"

When they first burst through the front door, John saw Castiel across the road. His back was to them, and he was half-hidden behind the Impala. Only his head and shoulders were visible where they leaned back against the roof of the car, his face pointed skyward with an expression of bliss. John supposed that he was enjoying the sun. 

"We have a location!" Rose shouted.

Castiel jumped, straightening up and turning around with a faint blush on his cheeks. Then Dean appeared from where he had been kneeling behind the car. He turned and spat something into the bushes before answering, "Finally! But how…" He performed a quick pat-down of his pockets, and, not finding his phone, whirled on Sherlock. "You stole my phone, Cheekbones?" he growled. 

"It's a good thing I did," Sherlock said, tossing Dean his phone back. "If you had had it, you might have been too distracted to answer it when it rang." When Dean immediately opened the phone and began dialing a number, Sherlock added, "There's no need to call him back. I know the way. Just follow our van."

Dean lifted his lip at Sherlock – almost a snarl. "I'm not following you anywhere," he said, putting the phone to his ear as he slid into the car. "You can follow me."

Castiel joined Dean in the Impala. While Dean talked on the phone instead of revving the engine and speeding away, the Doctor, Rose, and John exchanged nervous glances.

"Do you think…?" said John.

"Just in case…" said the Doctor.

Rose sighed. "I'll go with them, make sure they don't ditch us." And she dove into the back seat just as Dean put the phone down and turned the key in the ignition.

\-----

"Okay. Okay, Dean," said Sam into his phone. "See you in a couple of hours." He hung up. He had already given all the relevant information to Sherlock, but he had to admit that it was a relief to talk to Dean too. Despite Sherlock saying that they would be there as soon as possible, Sam was much more reassured by Dean's curt, "Stay put. We're hitting the road right now."

The hotel lobby that Jack had dragged Sam into was nicer than the places that he and Dean usually stayed at. Sam had tried to explain that the others would be there in a matter of hours, not days, but Jack insisted that they needed a hotel room. "If we have to kill time," Jack had explained, "Then we're going to a bar. If we go to a bar, I'll pick someone up. I'm sorry; it's inevitable. And when the inevitable inevitably comes to pass, I'm going to need a room to bring them back to."

It wasn't as if Sam could complain. Jack was "paying" for everything with a sheet of psychic paper. Although now that Sam looked again, it seemed that Jack wasn't so much paying for a room as he was flirting with the receptionist.

"Is it a nice room?" he was asking her. "I mean, if someone brought you back there, would you be impressed?"

The receptionist, for her part, was shyly flirting back. She lowered her eyes and giggled as she said, "I don't know. Probably not."

"Then give me a better room!" Jack said, "Jacuzzi in the bathroom! Mirrors on the ceiling!"

The receptionist laughed. "It's not that kind of hotel."

Sam stepped forward and dragged Jack away from the desk. "He'll take the room you gave him, thanks!" he told the receptionist, who seemed a little disappointed to see Jack go. Then, to Jack, "You're supposed to be laying low! Didn't you say something was after you?"

"If you'd let me talk to her for five more minutes, I would have been laying _very_ low," he said. "Why do you have to ruin my fun?"

Sam tried to steer him upstairs to the room, but Jack pulled toward the bar. They ended up in a stalemate, standing at the fork in the hallway between the elevators and the restaurant, staring each other down. "Do you understand how insanely lucky we got, landing so close to Dean?" Sam said, "We should just sit tight and not go looking for trouble."

"I'm not looking for trouble," said Jack. "I'm looking for some action. You can go sit tight somewhere else."

"Fine," said Sam, tight-lipped. "I'll wait in the room."

Jack replied with a grin. "Good! When I bring someone up, you can join in!"

Sam, who had been heading toward the elevators, turned on his heel and marched toward the front door instead. "On second thought," he said, "I'm going for a walk."

Jack watched him go, shaking his head. "That poor kid really needs to lighten up," he said as he made for the bar.

He ordered a drink, giving the cute, tattooed bartender a blatant wink along with his order. She was clearly uninterested, but that was no problem. Jack scanned the bar for other options. There weren't many people drinking in the middle of the day – a couple of young women giggling with their heads together by the window and drinking lemonades, a harried-looking woman nursing a double of whiskey, three young men watching a video on their phones and sharing a pitcher of beer, and a man in a sharp suit who wasn't drinking anything at all. 

Options.

But Jack didn't even get the chance to butterfly his way around the room and attract a (temporary) mate. When he went to order a second drink, the man in the suit joined him at the bar and smoothly paid for it.

"That's very kind of you," said Jack, sticking his hand out. "Captain Jack Harkness."

The man took Jack's hand with a strangely reptilian smile. "Nice to meet you," he said. "I'm Jim."

\-----

The van pulled out after the Impala, dutifully following. But soon it jumped forward into the passing lane, zooming by the Impala while the Doctor waved cheerfully at Dean. Dean gripped the steering wheel tighter and took the next opportunity to duck around the van and back into the lead. The Doctor passed him again at the next straightaway, grinning like a loon. Dean had passed the van once more, and the Doctor was looking like he was about to attempt another switch, when Rose said from the back seat, "He doesn't realize that he's making you angry, you know. He's just having fun."

"I'm glad one of us is," Dean muttered. But he took a deep breath and even managed a minimally-sarcastic wave when the Doctor passed him by. This time he stayed behind the van, giving up the game of back-and-forth. "I have to hand it to him," Dean said, calmer this time. "At least he's keeping up."

"Torchwood vehicles are faster than they look," said Rose, "And the Doctor still hasn't figured out that speed limits are usually well below his car's top speed."

The fondness in her voice made Dean ask, "So are you and him…?"

"Yes," Rose answered quickly. "Well… yes."

Castiel turned around in the passenger seat. "Back in the farmhouse, the two of you seemed to be having some sort of disagreement."

"We…" Rose looked about ready to launch into an extended rant, but then she stopped, sighed, and said instead, "It's complicated."

"Sister, I have been there," said Dean with genuine sympathy. Cas looked like he didn't know whether to be hurt or not, only relaxing again when Dean reached across and squeezed his shoulder.

They drove in silence until Dean got bored and passed the van again. The van almost immediately passed them back, the Doctor beeping the horn happily as he sped ahead of them. This time, Dean smiled.

"Sorry about before," Dean said, glancing at Rose in the rearview mirror. "It's been a weird day. A really weird day. But I'm not after your pal's vortex-whatever. I just want my brother back, okay?"

Cas beamed at Dean. Rose was momentarily stunned, but then she caught Dean's eye in the mirror and smiled. "So," she said, "You've decided to trust us after all?"

"You're not so bad," said Dean, shrugging. "John, too. Even your boyfriend – he drives like a maniac; I can respect that." Then he frowned and added, "I still don't like that asshole in the scarf, though."

Rose laughed. "I don't think many people do." She paused, and then leaned forward over the front bench seat to look Dean and Cas in their faces. "You really don't want the vortex manipulator?"

"We really don't," Cas assured her.

She turned to Dean. "Really?" she repeated. "You seem like the kind of man who has things in his past he'd like to change."

Dean took his eyes off the road for a few seconds to give Rose a good, hard look. Then he looked back at the road, taking a few seconds to compose his thoughts before saying, "Don't get me wrong. If I had a time machine, I'd be really, really tempted. I could save me a lot of trouble by talking to my past self for a few hours, if my past self would listen. And, yeah, there are some things I'd like to try to stop from happening. Some people I'd warn to stay away from me, for their own good. But it never seems to go as simple as you'd think. The more you try to change things, the more they stay the same." His voice, which had been dark and far away, suddenly brightened as he continued, "Besides, here and now, I've got Sam and I've got Cas. That's pretty damn good. I'm positive that there are lots of realities where I wasn't this lucky. So, no. I don't want the vortex manipulator. And if I had it, I wouldn't change a damn thing."

Rose settled back into her seat, saying, "I believe you."

A second later, Dean hit the gas and passed the van again, blasting the horn the whole way. 

\-----

True to Sherlock's prediction, it took them almost exactly two and a half hours to get to the town Sam had called from. They only needed to stop once for gas. Castiel and Rose went into the attached shop to get snacks; Sherlock and the Doctor stayed perched in their seats, conversing animatedly on the topic of Betelgeuse. 

From where he was pumping gas into the van, John called through the window, "I thought you didn't care about astronomy."

"I do when it concerns a sentient species that may have been involved in a string of unsolved murders in the 1980s," Sherlock replied. "Do go on, Doctor."

John looked put-out enough that Dean noticed from where he was feeding a fake credit card into the next pump over. "You two are kind of co-dependent, aren't you?" he asked. John looked about ready to launch into a vehement denial, but Dean stopped him with a raised hand and, "No, no. I'm not judging. I kind of have experience in that area."

Dean called Sam again as they rolled into the little town. "Thank God you're here!" Sam said in a hushed voice. "Head to the Riverside Hotel. I'll meet you there."

"There's a river in this town?" Dean replied.

"No, that's just what they call it," whispered Sam. "Jack is in room 211. Bring a bucket of ice water to throw on him."

"Dude, why are you whispering?" Dean said, his voice involuntarily dropping to match Sam's volume.

"Because I'm at the library," said Sam. "I've been hiding out here for over two hours, and I can't go back to the hotel or Jack will try to get me to join an orgy or something."

Dean rolled his eyes. "You are literally the only person in history who would rather hang out at the library than have an orgy." 

Cas, who could only hear Dean's side of the conversation, raised his eyebrows in alarm. Rose didn't look at all surprised that the conversation was taking a turn toward group sex, considering that Jack was involved.

The van followed the Impala through the twisty streets. Even though they got turned around a few times and took almost fifteen minutes to find the place, Sam was nowhere to be seen when they pulled up to the hotel. 

"He's not picking up his phone," said Dean after trying Sam for the third time.

"I saw the library when we were driving the wrong way down Front street," said Cas, narrowing his eyes. "It's only three blocks away from here. Sam should be here by now."

The Doctor and John were edging toward the hotel door, eager to find Jack. Rose followed them. "Are you coming?" she called back to Dean. "We could use an extra hand, in case we run into trouble."

Dean hesitated until Cas put a hand on his shoulder. "I'll find Sam," Cas promised. "He can't be far. I'll meet you back here."

"You got enough mojo to track him down the fast way?" Dean asked.

Cas shook his head. "I'll go on foot. Don't worry, Dean. I'll find him."

Dean nodded gratefully.

"Sherlock, are you coming?" John called. Sherlock was still sitting in the passenger seat of the van and eyeing a blue Porsche that was parked across the street. As John watched, Sherlock dashed out of the van and across the street to swipe his finger along the window edge of the car. He studied his fingertip for a second, then ran back across the street to reply, "No, I think not. You have fun though." John looked baffled, but he didn't argue.

As Cas took off down the street and Sherlock installed himself back in the van, the rest of the group stormed into the lobby of the hotel. "Um," said the receptionist. "Do you want to book a room?"

The Doctor held up a slip of psychic paper in a leather holder and said, "Scotland Yard, ma'am!"

"He means FBI," Rose added as they all rushed past the stunned receptionist.

They had rounded the corner, thundered up the stairs, and made their way down the hallway to room 211 before Dean remembered what Sam had said about orgies and ice water.

"Do you think we should, you know, knock?" he wondered aloud.

After their purposeful approach, no one seemed to know what to do with that suggestion.

"I suppose?" said the Doctor.

Rose reached between Dean and John and rapped on the door. There was no answer. She knocked again, louder. Still nothing.

"Screw this," said Dean, and he kicked the door in.

Because there was really no point in being subtle at that point, they all stormed in. Then they promptly stopped in their tracks at the sight of Captain Jack Harkness, naked from head to toe, handcuffed to the headboard of the bed and looking extremely nonplussed at the influx of new arrivals.

That sight was distracting enough that they almost missed the man in the crisp suit who was standing by the bed, in the process of unhooking the vortex manipulator from Jack's wrist.

"Moriarty!" John shouted, leveling his gun. Rose followed his lead, supposing that if someone as rational as John was prepared to shoot this man then he must be someone worth shooting. Dean did the same. 

The Doctor peeked over their shoulders, his hands empty. He waved to Jack. "Hello!" he said. "I'm the Doctor. We spoke on the phone." 

Slowly, with a long-suffering roll of his eyes, Moriarty put his hands in the air. "This is your fault," he said to Jack not-unpleasantly. "If you had just accepted my offer to go up to your room instead of insisting on drinking and flirting for hours on end, I would have been gone long before they arrived."

Jack grinned up at Moriarty from where he was shackled to the bed. "I was just enjoying your company," he replied. "If I'd known you were going to get kinky with me as soon as we went upstairs, I would have sped things up."

"Who is he?" Rose muttered to John.

"Long story," John muttered back. "Short version: clever, evil, once tried to blow me up in a swimming pool."

"What?" Dean muttered to them both.

Then Rose decided that someone ought to take control of this standoff. "Keep your guns trained on him, boys," she said, and strode toward Moriarty. She plucked the vortex manipulator neatly out of his hand. Moriarty made no move to stop her. All he did was smile, at once benign and vaguely threatening. 

Rose turned away from Moriarty for just long enough to toss the vortex manipulator across the room to the Doctor. He caught it, cradling it like it was made of glass. Even watching him only out of the corner of her eye, Rose knew that his eyes must have been sparkling. She hadn't forgotten what he'd said back at the farmhouse. Now that he had the device in his hands, he might never let it go.

And Rose wasn't sure if she wanted him to. For as long as he held the thing, he was once more a master of space and time. The vortex manipulator belonged to Jack, yes, but it wasn't as if neither of them had ever stolen something before. The Doctor had originally stolen the TARDIS, after all.

The Doctor flipped the device open and, with only a second to look at its innards, he pushed one or two components back into place and clicked it closed. "Fixed. It's not pretty, but it'll work. It just needs an hour or so to recalibrate." He slipped it into his jacket pocket. 

Jack had been watching the whole drama unfold around him with hardly a slip in his smile, but his eyes followed the vortex manipulator nervously as it was put away. "So you're the Doctor," he said. "I guess you really are as good as you claim. Now how about getting me out of here, unless you're into this kind of thing?"

"He's spoken for, I'm afraid," said Rose. Then, holding her hand out to Moriarty, "Key, please."

Moriarty didn't even pretend not to know what she was talking about. He just reached into the pocket of his suit jacket and handed over the key to Jack's handcuffs.

While Rose freed Jack, he smiled broadly up at her. "Can I ask who I have the pleasure of being rescued by?" he said.

"Torchwood," Rose replied brightly. "I'm Rose Tyler, by the way."

Jack's eyes swept over the Doctor, John, and Dean before returning incredulously to Rose. "You guys are Torchwood? Are they hiring from modeling agencies now?"

Rose laughed. It was good to know that Jack was the same no matter what universe they were in. She finished unlocking his handcuffs and he stood, rubbing his wrists.

"Dude," said Dean. His eyes were still on Moriarty, but Jack's full-frontal nudity was inescapably in his peripheral vision. "Do you think you could skip the sweet talk and put some clothes on?"

Jack turned and put his hands on his hips so that his groin was pushed forward. "Why? Am I making you uncomfortable?" he said with a grin. 

"Stop it, all of you!" John snapped. "I don't think you appreciate just how dangerous Moriarty is." Moriarty, for his part, was still holding his hands up and looking quietly amused at the whole proceedings. John went on. "There's clearly something else going on here. Someone go down and get Sherlock; he'll know what to do."

But before anyone could think about following John's order, a voice floated in from the direction of the hallway. "Hey, Dean-o!"

Dean flinched so violently that he almost dropped his gun.

"Who…?" the Doctor wondered.

"Meg," said Dean tersely.

"Come on out, Dean!" Meg called again. "I've got something I think belongs to you."

Dean lowered his gun to his side, shoved past the Doctor, and skidded out into the hall, leaving John as the only person still covering Moriarty.

"Excuse me!" John protested.

Rose added her own weapon to the situation, pointing it straight-armed at the back of Moriarty's head. "Go!" she ordered. "Walk!" Moriarty complied, and Rose steered him out into the hall after Dean. John and the Doctor followed her. With a shrug, Jack brought up the rear.

The scene in the hallway made it immediately apparent why Dean had been in such a hurry. A bright-faced, dark-haired woman stood several yards down the hall. She was dual-wielding pistols that she held pointed at her two hostages, who were on their knees in front of her. On her left knelt Sam, sporting a bloody nose, a split lip, and a black eye. On her right was Castiel. He looked in better shape than Sam, but his hunched posture hinted at injuries hidden beneath his clothes. 

A couple of doors along the hallway cracked open and curious faces appeared, drawn by the noise. The doors quickly closed again.

"Sorry, Dean," said Sam. "She got the drop on me."

Dean's gun was pointed at Meg's head, but his hand was shaking. "Let them go, Meg," he said.

Meg looked at him almost pityingly. "Aw, honey. Do you really think that's likely? Now, all of you put your guns down and kick them towards me."

Dean tightened his grip on his gun for a moment, but then the tension went out of his shoulders and he dropped it to his side, defeated. Slowly, he placed his gun on the floor and kicked it toward Meg. A glance at Rose and John silently begged them to do the same. 

"I could hit her from this distance," John offered in a whisper. He wasn't keen on shooting anyone, especially when there was so much he didn't know about the situation, but if people's lives were in danger then he was ready to spring into action. Besides, he was confident that he could make a non-lethal shot.

"Wouldn't matter," Dean replied. "She's a demon. You could shoot her in the heart and it'd be about as useful as poking a bear with a stick."

"What about Moriarty?" Rose whispered, the barrel of her gun still resting between his shoulder blades. "We'll be sitting ducks."

Just then, Meg called out, "I'm waiting! Five more seconds and I'm gonna start shooting off body parts. They don't actually need ears, right? Five… four…"

Dean turned toward Rose and John one more time. "Guys…" he said.

He didn't need to say anything more. Rose and John tossed their weapons into the no-man's land between the two sides.

"Good choice," said Meg. "Now, toss me the vortex manipulator."

"What?" the Doctor snapped.

"What?" Rose echoed. 

"Hey…" Jack said, holding up a finger as if to remind everyone of the actual owner of said vortex manipulator.

John glared. "Why?"

"Because that's what all of this was _about_ ," Meg groaned, rolling her eyes. "You guys are really not that bright, are you? I mean, what did you think Moriarty and I were trying to accomplish here? Get this asshole shackled to a bed?" She jerked her head toward Jack. Then her eyes did a once-over of his naked body and she added, "Actually, that wouldn't be a terrible plan." 

Jack stopped looking worried about losing his vortex manipulator for long enough to look flattered.

"You want it?" said Dean. "You got it. I don't care about it anyway. Just let them go."

Meg almost did a little dance of glee. "Oh, here's the really fun part," she said. "I will let _one_ of them go. And guess who gets to choose?"

Sam looked up at her from his position on the ground and said wryly, "You know that's probably the worst cliché you could possibly have pulled?"

"The classics are classics for a reason," said Meg. "Just look at your brother's face."

Dean could only imagine what his face looked like. Somewhere in the back of his mind he had known that this was coming as soon as he saw that both Sam and Cas had been taken hostage, but every fiber of his being had hoped that it wouldn't go that way. Now his knees felt weak as his eyes flicked frantically between his two choices.

His brother? Or the man he loved?

"Dean," Sam said gravely. "Save Castiel. I'll be fine."

Cas was quick to answer. "No, Dean! You have to save Sam."

Meg looked delighted. "I'd tell them to shut up," she said to Dean, "But I think they might actually be making this harder on you."

But then Rose stepped forward with a solution. "We'll trade you the vortex manipulator for one of them, and Moriarty for the other. He's your accomplice, right?"

"So?" said Meg, shrugging. "Kill him if you want. See if I care."

"Not to mention," Moriarty finally spoke up, "Now that your guns are over there and not pointed at me, there's really nothing to stop me from… doing this." And then, holding his arms out dramatically, as if he were performing a magic trick, he walked across the no-man's land between the two groups and installed himself behind Meg. John lurched forward once, as if he were considering tackling Moriarty before he reached safety, but he thought better of it and fell back in line.

"What's this about?" said the Doctor suspiciously. "What do a demon and a… um…"

"Consulting criminal," John supplied.

"What do a demon and a consulting criminal want with the vortex manipulator?" the Doctor finished.

Meg shrugged enigmatically. "You'll have to ask him what he wants with it," she said. "As for me, that shouldn't be too hard to figure out."

Cas turned to glare up at Meg. "You want to go back in time and use your knowledge of future events to ensure that Lucifer defeats Michael and brings about the apocalypse," he said.

"Point for the pretty one," said Meg with a smile.

John gaped for a moment before barking, "The apocalypse? She wants to start the apocalypse?" He caught Moriarty's eye. "I knew you were insane, but even you can't want the world to end!"

Moriarty, who looked bored by the whole affair, replied, "Oh, I don't. Once we get the vortex manipulator, I'll double-cross her and take it for myself." When everyone's eyes went to Meg, he added, "Oh, don't worry. She knows. She's working on her own plan to double-cross me, too."

"You think you can win against her?" asked the Doctor. "She's a demon, you know."

"Oh, like I've never dealt with demons before," said Moriarty. He reached into the collar of his shirt and fished out a thin silver chain. A pendant engraved with the anti-possession sigil dangled from the end.

"But what are you going to do if you win?" John demanded.

" _When_ I win," Moriarty corrected. "And why on earth would I tell you and ruin the surprise? I haven't even properly decided what I'm going to do with it yet. I mean, it's _time travel_. I can think of fifteen ways to bring down the British government and install myself as Emperor, and I'm not even _trying_!"

Meg nudged him with her elbow, not looking at all concerned about his declaration of his plans to betray her. "Would you quit monologuing?" she said. "We aren't even supposed to be here. Fucking with Dean is the only thing that makes this whole mess worth it right now, and you're distracting him." She looked back at Dean, letting him know that she hadn't forgotten her challenge.

Dean had barely heard the whole conversation. He had been silent so far, desperately trying to find an alternative to the scenario Meg had laid out. Now he swallowed hard and asked, "What happens to the one I don't choose?"

"I keep him as insurance against you following me when I make my getaway," said Meg. "After that… who knows?" Her toothy smile made Dean sure that she already had a few ideas.

"Take me instead," he said, but Meg only laughed.

"You know I'm not going to let you get away with that."

As the horror of the decision settled into Dean's chest, making it feel like his lungs were collapsing, he could hear his father's voice mingling with his own, repeating the mantra that had carried him through life ever since he was four years old. _Protect your brother._ Sammy came first, always, in everything, before anyone.

But Cas.

But _Cas_.

Ashen-faced, Dean made a noise that was barely recognizable as a single, choked syllable.

"You're going to have to speak up, there," said Meg, cocking an exaggerated hand to her ear.

Dean had to try twice more before he managed to say it. "Sam," he said, "Sam. Sam. Give me Sam."

His eyes flicked to Cas, dreading the expression of betrayal that he expected to find. But Cas held Dean's gaze evenly and, as Dean watched, a ghost of a smile flitted across his face. Then Cas's eyes closed and he gave a single, deliberate nod.

He had known who Dean would pick. He had known before Dean had known. Somehow, that made it worse.

Meg shrugged. "Yeah, that's what I figured," she said, sounding bored now that the game was over. "Gimme the vortex manipulator and he's yours."

Dean was too distracted to remember where the device had gone, but Jack, John, and Rose turned to the Doctor. Their eyes dropped to his pocket. For a second he hesitated, and Dean wasn't sure if he was going to give it up.

The Doctor's hand settled over the bulging pocket protectively. Then, stiffly, it dipped inside and drew out the gleaming device in its leather strap. He clutched it, still holding it close to himself. Dean stretched out his hand for it in a way that made it clear that if the Doctor didn't hand it over, Dean would take it.

"We could rush them," the Doctor whispered. "Take them out. We don't need to play into their hands."

Dean might have listened if he hadn't known that the Doctor was more concerned with not losing the vortex manipulator than he was with keeping people alive. Instead, he just felt like punching the Doctor in the face.

"They're armed," Jack pointed out. "We're not. We can win, but not here. Not now. Not without people getting killed. And I don't really care about most of you, but I kind of like Sam, and right now it looks like we don't have very many options that don't end in Sam getting shot."

But the Doctor didn't loosen his grip until Rose leaned forward and whispered something into his ear. She spoke so softly that Dean couldn't make out a single word, but the Doctor's face fell immediately upon hearing it. Rose pulled away. The Doctor placed the vortex manipulator in Dean's hand.

Dean threw it, a spiteful fastball aimed straight at Meg's face. She snatched it out of the air easily. And true to her word, she dropped the gun aimed at Sam and kicked him toward Dean. Sam looked back quickly, but Cas shook his head. "Sammy!" Dean called out, warning him not to do anything stupid. 

His face drawn in a grimace, Sam scampered across to join his brother.

Once Sam was back behind friendly lines, Dean let himself look back at Castiel. Though Dean didn't say a word, Cas smiled in understanding. 

Dean's eyes rose to Meg's smiling face. "I'll send you back to Hell for this, you evil bitch."

Meg holstered both her guns and grabbed Cas around the back of the neck. "Good luck with that," she said cheerily. Moriarty put his hand on Meg's shoulder.

And in that split second before Meg, Moriarty, and Castiel disappeared into thin air, the elevator doors just to their left opened. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, Sherlock Holmes stepped out of the elevator, sidled up to Moriarty, and took his hand.

With a dramatic snap of Meg's fingers, all four of them were gone.

\-----

When Meg rematerialized at her destination – a conveniently abandoned convenience store in the next state over – she wobbled on her feet and nearly fell. She only managed to stay upright by using the angel as a crutch, grip tightening on the back of his neck. He grunted in pain as she leaned into him.

She had gotten so used to being juiced up on souls that it was almost painful to fall back to the level she had been at before her deal with Moriarty. Unfortunately, that last jump had taken up the last of her power boost. She was an ordinary black-eyed demon again – perhaps stronger than most, due to her parentage, but without certain extra conveniences like teleportation. She couldn't even get herself out of driving range of the Winchesters which, though she knew they had no hope of finding her, made her jumpy. Now that she was so close to completing her plan, she would have preferred to be completely out of their reach. Like Barbados. Or the moon. She would have to settle for rural Kentucky.

It was only then that she bothered to look over at Moriarty, and found the unexpected passenger at his side. 

"What is he doing here?" she shrieked, after recovering from a moment of silent shock.

Moriarty shrugged, still holding Sherlock's hand and looking intensely amused at the unexpected turn of events. Sherlock was silent. He just threw Meg the kind of smarmy smile that begged to be slapped off his face.

So Meg complied, backhanding Sherlock so hard that he was knocked off his feet. He spat blood into the dust, but the grin still hovered on his lips. Meg resisted the urge to kick him. She had more important things to do.

She pulled Sherlock to his feet and checked his pockets. Aside from a pack of nicotine patches, they were empty. 

"Lock them in a closet or something," she ordered, handing Moriarty her gun and holding up the vortex manipulator. "We need to figure out how to use this damned thing."

Castiel and Sherlock walked compliantly in front of Moriarty as he guided them with the barrel of his pistol. Castiel looked resigned to whatever was about to happen, but Sherlock was still smiling that infuriating smile. It didn't leave his face even as Moriarty found a cellar with a locking door and shut both the hostages inside.

\-----

The "cellar" was really just an awkward little storage space under the floor. A heavy metal trapdoor opened to a short staircase. At the bottom of the stairs there was an upright wooden door. Moriarty slammed the door after his hostages, and a few seconds later they heard the heavy sound of the trapdoor closing above. 

Castiel peered through the darkness and spoke for the first time since their rematerialization. "What _are_ you doing here?"

The darkness was so complete that he couldn't make out Sherlock's form at all, but the smug tone of the answering voice made Castiel sure that Sherlock was still smiling. "A sports car with the steering wheel in European configuration deserves investigation. Deducing that the car belonged to Moriarty was simple enough, but it wasn't until I found sulfur residue on the window that I had to conclude that he was working with a demon. Moriarty, clever as he is, does not have access to space travel, so it must have been the demon who brought down Mr. Harkness's ship. Now…"

"Sherlock," said Castiel testily as he edged around the cellar wall, blindly mapping the room they were trapped in. "Please answer my question."

"I'm getting there," said Sherlock. "Where was I? Ah, yes. If the demon was powerful enough to forcibly board an orbiting spacecraft, then why didn't she pursue her prey when it ran? Mr. Harkness and the younger Winchester were allowed to globe-hop for most of a day without Moriarty or the demon making themselves known. Most likely, the demon was running short on power after her little space-walk, and was strategically waiting for her quarry to become stationary before she made her final attack. Since I had no way of knowing what form that attack would take, I waited outside the hotel in order to better assess the situation."

"So you saw Meg enter with me and Sam as her hostages?" Castiel asked, still waiting for Sherlock to get to the point.

"Of course I did," said Sherlock. "I'm no match for a demon, obviously, and with both of you at gunpoint I reasonably assumed that she would soon gain the upper hand and escape with the vortex manipulator. After that, it was just a matter of timing to hitch a ride, as it were, with you and our kidnappers."

"But _why?_ " Castiel growled, becoming increasingly frustrated. He had circled the room and come back to the door. The cellar was five paces wide and less than ten deep. Not much space to work with, but there were some shelves toward the back and some boxes near the door that might hold something of use. Castiel began to investigate the boxes while Sherlock continued.

"With her powers dwindling," said Sherlock, "I assumed that the demon would not be able to travel far. With myself along for the ride, her range was even more limited. By keeping us within a few hours' drive of the hotel, I ensured that our respective friends would have time to retrieve us and the vortex manipulator before Moriarty had time to enact his plan."

"That was very unwise of you," said Castiel. "We are unlikely to escape this place alive." The boxes held only foam packing peanuts. He moved back toward the shelves.

"Nonsense," said Sherlock, "John will find us."

"How?" said Castiel. It would have been too much to ask to find salt on the shelves, but at least there were several cans and cases that felt heavy enough to be of interest.

"I've taken care of that."

\-----

After Meg dematerialized with her passengers in tow, John found himself in a strange state of calm. Even as everyone around him began to shout and panic, he stood quietly, letting the cogs of his brain turn.

Sherlock must have done what he did for a reason.

But what?

The Doctor and Jack were busily shouting at each other while Rose tried to drown them both out:

"You don't even have a way to track the vortex manipulator? What were you planning to do if you ever lost it, sit around and hope someone would bring it back to you?"

"Why would I put a trace on something that I own while I'm trying to stay off the grid? That's like asking for someone to use it against me! I thought you were supposed to be smart."

"STOP ARGUING BOTH OF YOU, YOU ARE NOT HELPING."

Dean looked like he was only still on his feet by sheer force of anger. Sam had a grip on his brother's arm and was saying over and over, "Hey! Hey, look at me. We're gonna get him back, okay? He's gonna be fine."

And then John figured it out. Without a word, he pulled out his phone and began tapping away at it with a single finger.

It took a few moments for the others to notice John's odd serenity, but it eventually made them fall silent as they watched him work.

"How about showing a little concern here?" Dean growled. "They took your boyfriend too, you know."

John didn't bother correcting Dean on the nature of his and Sherlock's relationship. He just held up his phone, where a map application was steadily showing a beacon somewhere in western Kentucky.

"Sherlock went with them on purpose," John explained."To tell us where they'd gone."

"You put a trace on his phone?" said Rose, peering over John's shoulder in wonder.

John lifted his eyebrows. "You would too, if you had a friend who ran off into dangerous situations without telling you as often as Sherlock does."

Rose's eyes flicked toward the Doctor as she said, "That's not a bad idea."

But Jack stepped forward, saying, "It's no good. They would have searched him for a phone. If they haven't already destroyed it, then it's lying on the side of a road somewhere and they're long gone."

"It's Sherlock; he'll have thought of something," said John confidently, holding up the phone with its map. "This is where they are. I'm sure of it. And if I'm wrong, then it's not as if we have any other leads to follow."

There was only a moment more of silence before Dean clapped a hand on John's shoulder, nodding in solidarity. "Let's get back to the cars!" he said to the others.

\-----

As much as Dean didn't want Sam out of his sight, Sam insisted that, if they were about to go up against Meg, everyone needed to know the basics of demon self-defense. He rode in the van with John, the Doctor, and Jack. Since none of them had any experience with demons, he gave them a crash course in the uses of salt and holy water. He also handed out anti-possession hex bags from the Impala's trunk.

Rose rode with Dean in the Impala again, this time taking Cas's place in the passenger seat. Dean grabbed her hand, slapped a hex bag into it, and gruffly told her not to lose it.

"So, this will keep me from being possessed?" Rose asked as Dean fishtailed the Impala out of the parking lot and after the van.

"Honestly, sister?" Dean sighed. "If this goes the way it's going then getting possessed is gonna be the least of our worries."

Rose fidgeted with her hex bag. "Do you think we stand a chance of winning?"

"I'll worry about winning later," said Dean. "Right now I'm gonna get Cas back. That's what I care about. Saving the world can wait." Then he noticed how nervous Rose looked and added, "What're you so jumpy about? I got the impression before that this wasn't your first rodeo."

"It's not," said Rose. "But every other time, I had the Doctor with me."

Dean gave her a look. "He's right in the next car."

"I mean…" Rose stammered. "Yes. I know. He's the Doctor. But no matter how much I try to convince myself otherwise, he's not really _the Doctor_ , is he?"

"Youuuu…" Dean trailed off. "You lost me."

Rose sighed, burying her head in her hands. "Do you know what I whispered to him?" she said. "When he wouldn't give up the vortex manipulator? I told him, 'The real Doctor wouldn't have hesitated.' And yeah, it was cruel, but it was _true_. And I shouldn't have to remind him of what he used to be. He should remember. He should be better than he is, but he's not. I fell in love with a Time Lord, and now he's so bloody _human_ that it kills me to look at him."

Dean said nothing, and they were silent for a time while the two vehicles sped out of town and onto the freeway.

Then, more calmly than before, Dean said, "You want my advice?"

"Why not?" Rose said.

Dean was silent for a moment longer while he gathered his thoughts. Then he said, "I'm not saying it's the same thing, cause it's not, but… well, listen. I've got a human boyfriend who used to be a little more than human, so let me see if I understand where you're coming from. The guy you fell in love with was really powerful, right?"

"Yeah," said Rose. "I guess."

"He always seemed to know what was going on, and even when he made mistakes he always had a way out of them. You didn't really have to worry when he was around, because you knew he would always have a plan. And he had the juice to back it up."

"Yeah."

"And you felt safe, because you knew he'd protect you no matter what. Cause he cared about you. And even if it could never go further than that, it was okay as long as you got to stay with him. Right?"

Rose was looking up now, intrigued. "Right," she agreed.

Dean nodded. "But now you've got a human version of him. He can't protect you like he used to. In fact, sometimes he needs you to take care of him. He screws up sometimes. Gets things wrong. Acts like a dick. And worst of all, he can get hurt or killed now if you're not careful, so you're scared as fuck every time he's in danger."

"Yeah," said Rose.

Dean took his eyes off the road for a second to look at her. "He's operating on your level now," he said, "And it's freaking you out."

"That's not…" Rose started to say, but then she stopped and stared out the window for a while. "Okay, yeah. Kinda." She paused before adding, "But the problem isn't just that he's human. It's that he's selfish and petty and… and…"

Dean managed a half-smile. "Sounds an awful lot like humanity to me," he said.

"I just want him to be the way he used to be."

"So keep reminding him," said Dean. "He'll get it right eventually."

Rose didn't look convinced. "And if he doesn't?"

Dean shrugged. "Then you love what's there. Or you leave him. Not a whole lot of other choices."

Rose crossed her arms and sat back dejectedly.

"Here's how I see it," Dean continued, noticing her expression. "Things with Cas are different now, but I don't love him any less. And if I had the chance to get the old Cas back – like, grab Cas from three years ago and pull him forward in time – I wouldn't do it. I've been through a lot with Cas since he became human. I wouldn't undo a second of that, not for anything. And yeah, sometimes I think about the way things used to be, but I'm not gonna waste time missing what I used to have when I can love what I've got."

"You were right before," said Rose flatly. "It's not at all the same thing." Dean looked discouraged until she added, "But thank you for the advice."

\-----

It had been two hours, and time travel was still not occurring. Moriarty was beginning to lose his patience.

"He said that it was fixed," Moriarty pouted. "That's what the Doctor said. It's had an hour to recalibrate. It should be working by now."

Meg, who was getting more and more fed up with her co-conspirator, fiddled with the buttons and dials on the wrist strap. They remained dull and lifeless. "Maybe he pulled a fast one on you," Meg suggested, hitting the buttons in a different sequence.

" _No one_ pulls a fast one on me," Moriarty informed her.

Meg slammed the device down on a wooden workbench, defeated. "Then it looks like we need the Time Agent again. He must have put some kind of lock on it."

"We don't need him," said Moriarty as he grabbed it back up and began turning it over in his hands, looking for any kind of working mechanism that they hadn't tried yet. "I'm a genius. I can figure this out."

Meg rolled her eyes. "You had your turn," she said. "You couldn't even get it to turn on. We need Jack."

"We could have traded him for the angel," said Moriarty, frustrated. "If you hadn't been so keen on tormenting the boy you have a crush on."

Meg's face darkened. "Ew, gross," she hissed. "Say that again, and I'll smear you all over the walls."

Moriarty smiled like a snake. He fiddled with the anti-possession pendant where it now hung loose over his suit jacket. "I invite you to try."

For a moment they stared at each other. Meg's hands clenched at her sides, twitching, waiting to rise and strike. Moriarty became very quiet and still as he waited for Meg to attack, already thinking ten moves ahead. 

But instead of clashing, they both turned away. Moriarty pivoted neatly as if nothing at all had happened. Meg preened like a cat convincing itself that it had meant to let that mouse get away.

"Let's ask our hostages," Moriarty suggested.

Meg sneered. "They won't know anything," she said.

"Probably," said Moriarty. "But torturing people for information that they don't have can also be fun, and I need some cheering up before we go after Mr. Harkness."

Meg stared for a moment before a smile split her face. "Suddenly I remember why I liked you in the first place," she said.

\-----

Sherlock and Castiel hadn't wasted the two hours they had spent in the locked cellar. By their smell, two of the cans on the shelves near the back contained paint. Castiel had taken one and begun drawing something on the concrete floor near the door. Sherlock couldn't see it, but Castiel assured him that even in the dark, he was capable of completing a devil's trap.

Besides that, Sherlock didn't see much point in preparing. Either John and the others would reach them before Moriarty decided that they had outlived their usefulness, or after. He and Castiel were at such a disadvantage in the dark cellar that any plans they might have made were ultimately futile. This would not be a game of brawn, but of wits, and that game could not start until Moriarty once more showed his face. In the meantime, Sherlock waited.

At least he tried to wait, but he couldn't help commenting when he heard Castiel moving about near the door again. "Are you balancing a can of paint above the lintel?" he asked incredulously.

"Yes," Castiel said. "It won't hurt Meg, but this can is heavy enough to incapacitate her accomplice if he walks through first."

Sherlock couldn't hold back a snort of laughter. "James Moriarty will not be defeated by such a juvenile prank."

Castiel sounded testy when he answered. "If it's that laughable, then he might not see it coming. Besides, I don't see you offering any suggestions."

"That's because I don't have any," said Sherlock, "Save the assurance that Moriarty will not kill me. Whatever he has planned for the vortex manipulator, he will want me alive to witness it."

"Meg will have no qualms about killing me," said Castiel flatly.

Sherlock had been so fixated on Moriarty and so dismissive of Meg so far, that that honestly hadn't occurred to him. "Oh," he said. "Well, sorry about that."

Castiel sighed heavily. "So will you help me get ready to defend ourselves when they come back for us?" 

"It hardly matters at this point," said Sherlock as he noticed the sound of footfalls approaching the cellar door, "Seeing as they are already on their way."

First they heard the grating of metal as the rusty trapdoor on the main floor was opened. Then came the sound of two sets of feet making their way unhurriedly down the concrete staircase. Finally, the wooden door at the bottom of the stairs was unlocked and thrown open. 

The can of paint on top of the doorframe teetered and fell. Meg caught it easily in one hand, looking unamused. Moriarty stood just behind her. He tilted his head and stuck out his lower lip as he tried to see where the paint can had come from. When he saw where it had been perched, he grimaced as if in secondhand embarrassment.

Sherlock and Castiel stood tensely in the middle of the cellar. Now the only thing that stood between them and their captors was the devil's trap drawn just inside the door. True to Castiel's word, it was flawless. However, while it might have been overlooked in the low light if it had been painted in black or brown, the paint that Castiel had chosen turned out to be bright red. The trap was painfully obvious and, moreover, since it didn't quite touch the edges of the door, it was easily avoidable. Meg looked down at it, then up at Castiel. Her eye twitched once. Now she seemed embarrassed for them, too. "Really?" she said as she scooted around the edge of the trap and into the cellar. "That's all you've got? I'm kinda disappointed in you, Clarence."

"What do you want with us?" said Castiel, his voice going deep. He shifted his weight just a little, putting himself between Meg and Sherlock. He might not have been an angel anymore, Sherlock noted, but the heroic instinct was still very much in evidence.

Meg made a show of thinking about it, tapping her finger against her chin, before saying, "Well, I was gonna ask you how to work the vortex manipulator, but we both know that you don't know that. I'm gonna have to go back and get Jack for that. So I figure, why not grab a souvenir to give to Dean while I'm there? Like a finger. Or one of those pretty eyes."

Castiel said nothing, but he took an involuntary shuffling half-step backwards as Meg moved closer.

"If you harm us," said Sherlock, "It will go very badly for you." He was pleased to note that his voice did not hold a trace of fear. After all, logic stated that he was perfectly safe. Castiel may have been slightly less so, but as long as Moriarty stood slouched by the doorway, holding Meg's metaphorical leash, the risk remained slight. Moriarty was in control of his accomplice, Sherlock was sure, and Moriarty didn't tend to kill people unless their deaths served a purpose in his plans.

"Oh yeah?" Meg replied. "What are you gonna do about it? Run and tell your boyfriends?"

"John is not my boyfriend," said Sherlock matter-of-factly.

Meg smirked. "But you knew who I was talking about."

But Sherlock had ceased to be interested in Meg. His eyes were on Moriarty, who had pushed off the doorframe to stand upright. He stared intently at Meg, then at Sherlock, then at Meg again. At once Sherlock knew that he had let his confidence betray him, because he could see the wheels turning in Moriarty's brain as he put it together.

"My dear," said Moriarty to Meg. "Check your pockets, if it's not too much trouble."

Meg stared blankly, but not for long before she began patting herself down. She soon located a lump that hadn't been there last time she had checked. A murderous expression crept over her face as she pulled a cell phone out of her jacket pocket. It lit up with the push of a button, and Sherlock could pinpoint the exact moment that Meg figured out that it was transmitting its position.

"How…" she stammered.

"I relied on your violent nature to get you close enough to me so that I could drop it into your pocket," Sherlock explained. Now that the jig was up, he couldn't help but brag. "Although it was a lot easier to get you to hit me than I thought it would be."

"So the Dream Team is on the way here?" Meg growled, throwing the phone against the wall to punctuate her question. The case cracked open and electronics showered the floor.

Sherlock made a show of checking his watch. "Considering the unorthodox driving habits of the Doctor and that idiot in the Chevrolet, I'm rather surprised that they haven't arrived already."

Meg looked like she was about to punch Sherlock's head right off his shoulders, but she barely had time to drop her weight and curl her hand into a fist before Moriarty stopped her with a sharp clearing of his throat.

"Oh, right," Meg laughed darkly. "You called dibs on this one."

Moriarty shrugged. "Go ahead and rough him up a little," he allowed. "Just leave him in one piece. And try to avoid his head; I like his brain."

But Meg was already shaking her head. "I've got a better idea," she said, pointing a finger at Sherlock. "I'll just ride his ass out to meet them. As much as I would have liked torturing that spaceman for information, I gotta admit that a little subterfuge will be a lot faster." She turned to Moriarty and added, "Don't worry. I won't damage the goods."

But before she could stretch a hand out for Sherlock, Castiel stepped forward to meet her. "I won't let that happen," he said.

Meg just grinned at him like a cat. "I'm sure Dean got you one of those pretty tattoos as soon as you fell, right?" she said sweetly, "So you're useless to me. In fact, you're worse than useless – you're in my way."

Castiel took a swing. Sherlock had to admit that it was brave, even though it was also incredibly stupid. Predictably, Meg snagged his fist out of the air. A quick twirl and a flip of her wrist put her behind him, his arm twisted back. Meg kicked his knees out to force him to the floor. Castiel was immobilized in seconds with Meg bending over him gleefully.

"Hey, remember when you dropped me into holy fire?" Meg crooned into Castiel's ear. "Consider this my payback." With that, she gripped his arm by the shoulder and wrist and wrung it like a wet dishrag. 

There was a burst of sharp cracks like splintering wood, and Castiel hit the ground with his elbow facing the wrong direction. He didn't make a sound. He just lay there, his feet scrabbling helplessly at the concrete floor. A cable of saliva ran from his gaping mouth to the ground. His chest heaved, but no breath passed his lips as he choked on pain so intense that he couldn't even scream.

Sherlock swallowed once, but gave no other indication of fear.

Meg stood, dusting her hands. "Now that that's taken care of…" she said, and then, without warning, a cloud of thick black smoke poured out of her mouth.

"Get back!" Castiel warned through clenched teeth, but Sherlock stood motionless as the cloud swooped toward him, leaving its former vessel to fall lifelessly to the ground. The cloud almost seemed to roar in triumph as it dove toward Sherlock's face…

Only to bounce ineffectively off of it. If a cloud of smoke were able to look confused, Meg did at that moment.

Smugly, Sherlock lifted the left leg of his pants to reveal a small pentagram surrounded by a sunburst tattooed on his ankle. "A lifetime of investigating strange deaths in London," he reminded her. "Did you really think I'd never come across a demon before? And that I didn't take reasonable precautions?"

The smoky cloud that was Meg turned back toward her abandoned body. But before she could pour herself back into it, Moriarty sprang forward and used the toe of his gleaming shoe to roll the body over and into the devil's trap, out of Meg's reach.

The cloud hovered, frozen. Moriarty shrugged at it apologetically. "I saw an opportunity," he said. "And now is really as good a time as any to betray you."

The cloud swirled angrily.

"Oh, don't look at me like that," Moriarty pouted. "You should take this as a compliment. I could have killed you. But I like you well enough that I'm letting you escape. So go. Escape." He waved his hands in a shooing motion.

Castiel had managed to curl up on his side, cradling his shattered arm awkwardly against his chest. His face was so ashen that it was almost tinged with blue. Sherlock was somewhat surprised that he was still conscious. But he was clearly listening, because he choked out so that only Sherlock could hear, "Dean… She'll go after Dean and Sam."

Sherlock knelt and whispered back, "They can take care of themselves. This is good. I can deal with Moriarty, but Meg is unpredictable. With her out of the picture, we stand a chance."

For a moment Sherlock thought he had managed to reassure Castiel, but then, "No. I won't put them in danger. Not if I can stop it." And before Sherlock could stop him, he surged to his feet.

Castiel wasn't really standing in the strictest sense. As soon as he was upright, he began to fall again. But as he fell, he managed to stagger for a few clumsy steps. He closed the distance between himself and Moriarty before he lost his balance completely. On his way back to the ground he reached out with his good arm. His fingers hooked into the chain of Moriarty's anti-possession pendant. As he hit the ground, giving a strangled scream as his arm was jarred horribly, the chain snapped. The pendant hit the ground beside him. 

Moriarty was left defenseless.

"No!" Moriarty cried, his face crumbling as he tried to backpedal away from Meg. "Noooo!" Meg wasted no time in streaming toward his cowering form, aiming herself at his mouth.

But Sherlock had already recognized that it was far too theatrical to be true. As the smoke rebounded from Moriarty's face the same way it had from Sherlock's, Moriarty composed himself again so quickly that it was a little eerie. "Did you think the pendant was my only trick?" he chuckled. "What do you take me for?"

Faced with three bodies that she could not use, and one that she could not reach, Meg took the only option left to her. She fled, swirling her way out of the cellar, through the outer doors, and into the open air. 

Moriarty dusted his hands, looking pleased with himself. "Looks like it's about time for me to make my getaway with the spoils of my conquest and all that," he said, sounding almost bored about it.

Sherlock stepped forward. "I'll stop you," he said.

"Oh, but then I'll have to shoot you," Moriarty whined, pulling a pistol out of the inside of his jacket and waving it in Sherlock's general direction, "And that would defeat the whole point of this. Really, what's the use of being the master of space and time if you're not around to worship me?" He began to back up the staircase. As he went, he called down into the cellar, "You just stay there and look after your little friend. He's not looking so good right now."

Sherlock only paused for a second to look down at Castiel where he lay gasping on the concrete.

"Go!" Castiel barked. 

Sherlock gave a curt nod before rushing after Moriarty, leaving Castiel alone in the cold, dark cellar.

\-----

The van was tense and silent as the Doctor tore down the freeway. John sat in the passenger seat hunched over his phone, giving directions as he watched the beacon of Sherlock's transmission as if it were a lighthouse in a storm. Sam and Jack were in the back, taking their pick of the arsenal there. The Impala followed close behind.

"It…" said John suddenly, uncertainly. Then his voice rose, panicked. "The transmission stopped! It's gone!"

The Doctor peeked over at the phone, nearly causing the van to swerve into the next lane. The Impala's horn blared a warning at them from behind. "So it has," said the Doctor. "Not to worry. We're not far now, and I'm sure you remember where it was."

"Yes," said John. "But this probably means that Moriarty has found the phone. He'll be expecting us. We're walking into a trap."

"Won't be the first time," said the Doctor flippantly.

Even as the Doctor sped up to truly worrying speeds, he began wiggling uncomfortably. He shifted back, and then forth, and then pulled out of his pocket the thing that was digging into his hip. It was the hex bag Sam had given him, to protect him from possession. They all had one – John's in his trouser pocket and Jack's tucked inside his coat.

The Doctor eyed the bag suspiciously. He'd already inspected it. It was nothing but a scrap of cloth tied with a leather string, containing a few bones and herbs. The Doctor had seen many unlikely methods of protection in his travels, but this was a bit beyond the pale. He was, after all, a man of technology and science. Demons he could handle. But the idea that a sack full of the scraps from someone's kitchen could save his life was close to laughable.

Rather than putting it back in his pocket, the Doctor set the hex bag down in the center console of the van.

John stared at his phone, waiting to see if the signal would return. He didn't notice when, a few minutes later, a tendril of black smoke flowed in through the open window. The Doctor only noticed it right before it began to force its way into his mouth, far too late to cry out a warning. His throat and lungs burned as if he had just taken a great breath of campfire smoke, but he was too paralyzed to so much as cough. Soon the burning sensation spread beyond his lungs, taking grip of every muscle and neuron in his body.

In seconds, he was locked inside himself, watching helplessly as the new master of his body began to make herself at home. 

"It's not as pretty as my last meatsuit," said Meg in a way that only the Doctor could hear. "But it'll do."

The Doctor could see the hex bag just beside his elbow. If he could only reach out and pick it up… But his limbs were no longer his own. Reading her vessel's mind with ease, Meg discreetly swept the hex bag off the center console and onto the floor, where it rolled under the seat and out of sight. 

"Take the next right," John ordered. "We're nearly there."

Meg smiled and pressed her foot down harder on the gas pedal as she made the turn. "I know," she said. 

The Doctor looked on helplessly.

\-----

The beacon had last transmitted from a lonely stretch of road in Kentucky. There was a gas station and several squat buildings, all of which looked abandoned. The only place with lights in the windows was a convenience store with half the windows busted out. The van slid to a stop on the dusty asphalt. John tried to tell himself that Moriarty hadn't had enough time to escape, that Sherlock must be nearby. But he couldn't help but wonder what he would do if they found all the buildings empty with no clues to lead them onward. 

But he didn't have to worry for long. The door of the convenience store slammed open and Moriarty strode out of them purposefully. The vortex manipulator was in his hand. Sherlock Holmes was following close behind him.

Sherlock was about to catch up when Moriarty spun around and pointed a pistol at Sherlock's head. "I thought we'd been over this," he said. "This is the part where I make my getaway."

John didn't realize that he was moving until he was already out of the car with his own gun drawn. "This is the part where you _drop your weapon_ ," he shouted, taking great satisfaction from Moriarty's genuine flinch of surprise. 

The others quickly joined him, Dean and Rose emerging from the Impala with their guns drawn. Sam and Jack jumped out of the back of the van. They were armed to the teeth with all the most exotic-looking weapons from the arsenal. The Doctor stepped out of the van too, slowly. Even though John was somewhat preoccupied, he couldn't help but think it was out of character that the Doctor was also holding a pistol. 

Moriarty put his hands in the air, looking bored again. "Oh, no," he said. "You've caught me and I have absolutely no backup plan whatsoever." Then his face twisted into a sort of humored grimace as he said, "Now, does that sound like me?" 

John scanned the street, looking for whatever backup plan Moriarty was about to activate. 

His hands still in the air, Moriarty dipped his head down and said to the collar of his shirt, "Give them a warning shot, Seb."

Less than a second later, there was a sound like a firecracker and a rooster-tail of dust and asphalt kicked up from the ground right between Moriarty and Sherlock. When the dust settled, there was a little crater left in the street.

"Sniper!" John growled in frustration. 

"I don't have to tell you all to drop your weapons, do I?" Moriarty asked pleasantly. 

John raised his hands, his gun dangling harmlessly from his thumb, as he edged forward and grabbed Sherlock by the sleeve. He dragged him back behind friendly lines and away from the divot left by the bullet.

Dean lifted his pistol so that it wasn't pointed at Moriarty's head, but he didn't drop it. "Where's Cas?" he demanded.

Moriarty made a great show of sighing. "Oh, it's so hard to keep track of where I leave all my things…"

"Cheekbones?" Dean barked, turning to Sherlock instead. 

Sherlock, to his credit, wasted no time in saying, "Inside, against the back wall, twenty meters to the left. There's a trapdoor to a cellar."

Only pausing to give Sherlock a grateful nod, Dean took off toward the warehouse doors. Sam was close behind him, shooting Moriarty a dirty look. Moriarty shrugged, not looking terribly interested in the Winchesters or where they were going.

Once the brothers were gone, Moriarty whined, "Can I go now?"

It was only then that the Doctor stepped forward. "Oh, I wouldn't. You'll miss the best part."

It took a moment for John to realize that the Doctor’s eyes were gleaming black.

\-----

Rose could feel it as soon as the Doctor stepped forward, like a shift in the air between them. His swagger was not his familiar swagger. His smile was not his familiar smile. Instead he exuded a smooth, comfortable sort of cruelty.

This was not her Doctor. Not even close.

"The demon!" Rose lifted her weapon, But she quickly lowered it again. Her arms stuttered indecisively. Shooting Meg would also mean shooting the Doctor. Besides, she wasn't even sure if her gun would work against someone like Meg. 

"Look," said Meg with the Doctor's mouth, striding with the Doctor's long legs out into the open street. "This wasn't supposed to be all that complicated. A nice, handsome psychopath offers me a boatload of souls and the chance at a ticket for a free do-over of the Apocalypse. Hell, as it turned out, I even got a chance to fuck with the Winchesters. But then my favorite meatsuit gets put in a devil's trap, and now I'm all out of laughs."

"I was just making my move," said Moriarty. "You knew it was coming eventually." He tried to sound unconcerned, but a nervous edge had crept into his voice. Meg couldn't be easily put down by his friend with the sniper rifle. 

Meg smiled, making the Doctor's face look frighteningly unhinged. "Doesn't stop me from being pissed about it," she said.

While Meg was turned toward Moriarty, away from the little group by the van, Rose plucked up her courage and sprinted into the street. She pulled the hex bag Dean had given her out of her pocket as she ran. When she reached Meg, she shoved the bag into her hands. 

They stood for a moment, Meg’s forehead wrinkling in confusion as Rose pressed the bag into the Doctor’s hand. But Meg was not repulsed by the talisman as Rose had expected. As it slowly dawned on Meg what Rose was trying to do, she laughed.

"Aw, Blondie," she said sympathetically. "That was a nice try, but it's no good locking the door now that I'm already inside."

The gentleness of Meg's voice almost made Rose think that she was going to let her go. But then Meg raised her hand, lightning-fast. The butt of her gun slammed into Rose's left temple. Rose hit the ground before she even realized that she was falling.

Even with her face pressed into the asphalt, the ground seemed to pitch and spin under her. Her ears rang. Rose barely managed to focus enough to hear what happened next.

"Maybe I can't beat you," Meg was saying to Moriarty, "Maybe you really have planned for everything. But I'll tell you what. If you're gonna get away with your prize, I'm gonna make sure you don't get to enjoy using it."

With that, Meg pointed her pistol at Sherlock Holmes and pulled the trigger.

\-----

Sherlock watched the pistol rise toward him with a sort of morbid fascination. In that split second between the moment at which he knew he was about to be shot and the moment at which the bullet actually left the gun, his mind ran a bit wild.

First of all, he decided that all things considered, he would really rather not die. But that wasn't looking like much of an option considering the fact that Meg was aiming at his gut. Even if no major arteries were damaged, which would be a very big "if," a bullet wound to the abdomen didn't exactly have a good survivability in these circumstances. He was looking at the unenviable choice between bleeding out within minutes and dying somewhat more slowly of sepsis secondary to a ruptured bowel.

Secondly, he allowed himself a moment to marvel at the very unique circumstances of his death. Sherlock had often thought about the manner of his own demise, but he had to admit that he'd never considered this particular scenario. Though he wore his anti-possession tattoo, the truth was that the supernatural played a very small role in his business and it was more than a little strange that this case – with its demons and aliens and angels and whatnot – was the one that was finally going to do him in.

And thirdly, he supposed that if he must die, at least he was enjoying the expression of utter horrified rage that was now gracing Jim Moriarty's face. He had to hand it to Meg. Her mind may have been more of a blunt instrument compared to the precise scalpels wielded by Sherlock and Moriarty, but in the end she knew how to hit where it hurt. The idea that Moriarty would probably get away with the vortex manipulator, only to find no use for it without a worthy adversary, was deeply funny to Sherlock. He could almost feel sorry for Moriarty.

A flash of dusty-blonde hair intruded on his view of Moriarty's apoplectic face. It was only then that Sherlock realized that while he had used that split second to ponder, John had used it to act. With all the reflexes of a retired military man, John stepped in front of Sherlock just in time for Meg to shoot.

The boom of the gun didn't quite mask the wet, fleshy thud of the bullet as it hit John just above his navel. John didn't make a sound. He simply staggered back half a step, his back hitting Sherlock's chest. And then he was sinking, sliding downward, and Sherlock was doing everything he could to keep him up, his hands made clumsy by desperation as he grasped wildly at John's shirt and tried to fight the irresistible pull of gravity.

"No, no," muttered Sherlock, running a distraught hand through his hair as he finally gave up and laid John down on his back in the dust. He pressed his hands to the hole in John's shirt, but they were still shaking, and somehow they had become covered in blood. Everything was covered in blood, in fact, and the sight of it made Sherlock feel something that he didn't often (or ever) feel: very stupid indeed. 

John lifted his head weakly, but he quickly dropped it again when he saw the blood pouring freely from beneath Sherlock's ineffectively pressing hands. He had a sort of serenely resigned look on his face. Sherlock found it as infuriating as he did terrifying. "Well," said John. "That's that, then."

A shadow fell across John's face. Sherlock didn't even look up as Meg spoke. "That's quite a friend you've got there. Really, I'm touched."

When Sherlock finally raised his face to look at her, Meg had her gun pointed between his eyes. "I won't miss this time," she promised.

\-----

As soon as Dean pushed through the doors to the warehouse, everything that might or might not have been happening outside was forgotten. He followed Sherlock's directions, sprinting through the store. When he saw the trapdoor, he stopped so suddenly that even his heavy boots slid a little on the tile floor.

Just before Dean moved to throw the trapdoor open, it occurred to him that he hadn't bothered to ask either Moriarty or Sherlock whether or not Cas was even still alive. After all, why was he still in the cellar when Sherlock had easily walked out? 

The air went out of Dean's lungs. The trapdoor weighed heavy on his arms, and he almost dropped it.

But then Sam was beside him, lifting in unison. A glance and a nod from Sam, and Dean's strength returned to him. Together, they lifted the door open. 

A short staircase led down into the dark. And at the bottom lay a huddled figure in a trench coat.

"Cas!" Dean called out as he half-ran-half-leaped down the stairs. "Cas!"

And then, to Dean's infinite and overwhelming relief, the form in the trench coat stirred, looked up at him, squinted, and said, "Dean?"

Dean dropped to his knees. He tried to pull Cas into an embrace, but Cas warded him off with one hand and a fearful cringe. "No!" he gasped. "My arm…"

Sam's voice echoed a little as he called from up above. "Hurry up, Dean. I think something's happening out there."

"Lemme take a look," said Dean. He waited for Cas to nod before pulling out his knife. He slit the sleeve of Cas's coat from wrist to shoulder, and it fell open to reveal a sight that made Dean look away with a soft groan. The arm was mottled red and black, and so swollen that Dean wasn't sure how it had even fit in that coat sleeve. A long splinter of bone protruded from the skin where an elbow should have been. 

This wasn't the kind of broken arm that got better with a few weeks in a cast. This wasn't the kind of broken arm that got better, period. 

Cas looked down at his own arm, but he didn't start to look scared until he saw Dean's stricken face.

"You're gonna be okay," said Dean automatically. "Come on."

"Careful..." Cas protested as Dean hooked one arm under Cas's legs and another behind his back. He whimpered a little as Dean lifted him, shifting his arm slightly, but then he managed to relax. 

Dean carried Cas up into the light, where Sam was standing by the exterior door and peeking out.

"We gotta get out of here," Dean said. "Are we still pinned down by that sniper?"

Sam turned, his face drawn tight. "I think we've got some other problems right now, Dean."

"What…" Dean started to ask, but then he took a look outside and sized up the situation. He quickly pivoted back behind the door and out of sight. "Fuck. Meg?"

"Looks like," said Sam.

"Let me see," said Cas. Dean rotated awkwardly so that Cas could see out of the gap in the door. Even with all the adrenaline of the day, Cas was heavier than Dean had bargained for. So when Cas suddenly said, "Put me down," Dean thought Cas had read his mind.

"It's okay, Cas, I've got you," Dean said.

"Dean," said Cas, looking into Dean's eyes with an intensity that reminded Dean of when Cas had been an angel, "Put me down."

\-----

It had once been such a simple thing for Castiel to push aside the pain of physical injuries and fight even when he was broken and bleeding. Back then, after all, he had just been wearing a vessel. Something to be used up, put back together, and ultimately cast aside.

But now he was more or less human. He lived in his body. It dictated what he was and was not able to do. And as he had soon learned, being in pain seriously interfered with even the most basic functions. Like standing.

So Castiel was very glad when Dean put him down on his feet, and he managed to stay on them. 

"What's the plan?" said Sam, eyeing him uncertainly. Both Sam and Dean had their hands out, ready to catch Castiel if he were to fall. Castiel wondered how bad he looked, that they were so worried.

"Whatever happens," Castiel said, "I need you both to stay here, out of sight."

"Like hell that's gonna happen," Dean scoffed. "We can help. We've got salt rounds, and there's gotta be some iron around here…"

But Sam pointed out, "We can't risk killing anybody. Besides, if we run out of here shooting, the sniper will take us out."

"I can handle this by myself," Castiel insisted.

Dean's face reddened in anger, but his eyes were wide with fear. "You can't even walk!" he snapped.

To prove him wrong, Castiel took a step and closed the gap between them, looking straight into his eyes. "You're going to have to trust me," he said. 

"Cas, wait!" said Dean, but Castiel was already edging out the door and back onto the crowded street, leaving Dean and Sam hidden in the shadows of the warehouse entryway.

Dean had been right. Cas couldn't walk. Every tiny movement of his body seemed to shift the pieces of the bones of his arm against each other, making him want to retch from pain. His head felt heavy, as did his legs, and the ground seemed to tilt under him. 

But he had a job to do, so he found a way to shuffle slowly forward, keeping his arm as still as possible by his side. Meg's back was to him, and Castiel could tell that she was speaking though her voice sounded very far away.

What did not sound far away was the gunshot. It happened too quickly for Castiel to hope to have stopped it, and suddenly Sherlock was on the ground.

No, not Sherlock. The other one, John, with Sherlock kneeling beside him. Castiel's vision was closing in around him as he slid his feet, following Meg as she approached the fallen pair. She pointed her gun. And though Castiel was closing the distance as fast as he could, he could tell that he would not reach her in time.

To his right, there was a blur of color and motion. Rose launched herself toward Meg, a ribbon of blood flowing from her temple. She threw herself on Meg's gun-arm. She managed to wrench it up into the air just as the shot was fired. The bullet went spinning away harmlessly. Meg almost seemed amused by the useless display of bravery as Rose hooked her arms under the Doctor's skinny shoulders and held on with all her might.

Rose looked at Castiel as she held Meg pinned. And with just a glance, Castiel understood that Rose was not throwing herself into danger pointlessly. Though she could not possibly know what Castiel had planned or whether it had a prayer of working, she trusted him enough to try and buy him some time.

"Hurry!" Rose shouted as Meg finally realized that Castiel was sneaking up behind her.

Castiel closed the last several feet at a sprint. Meg was livid, and he knew that they had less than a second before she broke free of Rose's grip and killed them all. He reached out with his only working arm and pressed his hand to Meg's forehead. 

Castiel was, for all intents and purposes, human. He had been so for over a year. He lived as a human, fought as a human, got sick and healed and loved and did laundry as a human. But every once in a while he managed to draw on the last of his grace and call up a minor miracle. So far he had only managed it a handful of times. It had been difficult, but when it came down to life or death he always came through.

Of course, he had never managed anything as taxing as smiting a demon. And he had never tried it while he was in such bad shape that he could barely stand. But that couldn't really be helped.

He reached deep within himself, drawing on all the reserves he had left, and poured them out into his arm, his hand, into the Doctor's body, trying to burn Meg out. The effort of it made his head swim. His vision blurred. But it was working. Light stabbed its way out of Meg's eyes and mouth as her vessel was flooded with angelic power, paralyzing her. But Castiel could feel the reservoir of his grace dwindling. It would not be enough. Not enough to kill her.

So he changed his tactic, even as his knees buckled underneath him and his vision narrowed down to a pinpoint. Instead of killing her or sending her back to Hell, he cast her out. 

The Doctor's mouth snapped open, and Meg gushed out of his mouth and up into the sky. The black wisp mingled with the low clouds. She was gone in seconds. She would find a new vessel sooner or later, but for the moment she was banished. 

Castiel did not see Meg's escape. His hand was already falling to his side, his eyes already closing. He was senseless before he even hit the ground. 

\-----

Sherlock noticed the fact that Castiel was using some sort of supernatural means to force the demon from the Doctor's body. He noticed the Doctor slumping into Rose's arms, and Rose quickly turning her armlock into a warm embrace. He noticed Castiel hitting the dirt, and Dean and Sam racing from their hiding place to his side. But all of that information simply filed itself in his brain under, "I am no longer about to be shot in the face," because it was very difficult to muster up real concern for anything besides the fact that John's blood was still pulsing out from under his hands at an alarming rate.

"John," he said, his voice surprisingly calm. For once, he could not seem to put two thoughts together into a coherent conclusion. The cogs of his mind spun uselessly, their teeth never meshing, but at least it didn't show in his voice. "Don't move. We have to try to minimize the blood loss until we can get help…"

John placed his hands over Sherlock's, but his grip was weak and his skin was pale. "Sherlock," was all he said, but the gentleness and regret in his voice was enough. There was no minimizing the arterial hemorrhage that was clearly underway. And there was no help to be had.

Sherlock looked up. There was a dazed quality to his vision, as if he had just taken a good hit upside the head. Rose and Jack were keeping the Doctor on his feet, and Dean and Sam were propping Castiel up as he came to. They looked on in horror as the red pool around Sherlock's knees continued to grow. 

"Do something," Sherlock ordered, his voice still unsettlingly calm. Then, when no one answered him, all the calm left him at once. His face grew hot and he bellowed, " _Do something!_ Any of you! What good are your powers and your magic and your technology if you can't save him?" 

The Winchesters looked on with something like pity. They'd dealt with enough gunshot wounds to know which ones you don't get up from. The Doctor kept shaking his head, tears pooling in his eyes as he said over and over, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"With the vortex manipulator, I could get him to a hospital," Jack offered, but even the suggestion sounded futile. A wound like this would have been fatal even if it had occurred in an actual emergency room. Here, now, it was already too late.

When Sherlock looked down again he found John's head fallen back, his eyes closed, his face ashen. Sherlock moved one hand, dripping with blood, to John's throat, and though there was a pulse there it was thready and weak. To his horror, Sherlock understood that the only option left open to him was to kneel here in the dust, his fingers pressed to John's neck, waiting for that pulse to slow and finally stop. 

But then a voice spoke, shrill with panic and emotion and the thrill of sudden realization, " _NANOGENES!_ " All eyes went to its source: Rose, who was standing with her arms spread and her eyes wide, waiting for someone to acknowledge her idea. Everyone stared blankly. 

Except for the Doctor, who regained some of the brightness in his eyes as he realized. "Jack's ship!" he said. "It's the same one he had when we met him in 1941!"

"Nanogenes and all!" Rose finished the thought for him. She turned to Jack for confirmation.

"It'd work," said Jack, nodding. "But my ship is back where I crashed it, two states away."

Then, all at once, Jack, Rose, and the Doctor turned around to look at Moriarty where he stood, still grinning as he watched the drama unfold, still quietly holding the vortex manipulator, still confidently protected by his hidden sniper.

"What are all of you even talking about?" Sam demanded.

But Sherlock had no need to ask for explanations. Even if he had no way of knowing what nanogenes were, his companions seemed confident that they could save John. And that was enough. Any ray of hope, no matter how incomprehensible or remote, was better than sitting here and waiting for the end. And if they needed the vortex manipulator to make this plan work, then Sherlock would get it for them.

John's handgun lay on the street where he'd dropped it, just outside the spreading puddle of blood. Sherlock snatched it up and snapped the safety off. 

Moriarty spoke for the first time since before Meg had fired her gun. "Really?" he said, sounding torn. "I'd rather not have my man shoot you, but if you start threatening me then I won't have a choice."

"I'm not threatening you," said Sherlock as he tilted the gun upright and placed the barrel beneath his own chin, "And I don't think you'd have me shot. Not for any reason. In fact, I think you'll do whatever it takes to keep me alive."

Moriarty rolled his eyes, but Sherlock could detect a hint of real fear in his expression. "Don't you think that's a little melodramatic?" he said.

"Not if it works," Sherlock snapped. "Now, give us the vortex manipulator, and I'll let myself live."

"You think you can hold yourself hostage?" chuckled Moriarty, panic creeping into his laugh. "Do it! Pull the trigger! It'll save me the trouble of killing you later on!"

Sherlock moved his pointer finger, letting it rest lightly on the trigger. The twitch of Moriarty's eye was enough to tell him that he had already won. "No, I don't think so," he said. "I think Meg had it right. Whatever you're planning to do with that device, you want me around to appreciate it. Enough so that, if I weren't around, there would be no point. To any of it."

"You're bluffing," said Moriarty.

John's heartbeat was slowing. He was running out of time. Perhaps he already had. That blind desperation was evident in Sherlock's voice as he rasped, "You know I'm not."

And perhaps it was trite and overdramatic – suicide in the face of bereavement was more characteristic of the heroine of a romance novel than of Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, self-proclaimed sociopath (even though anyone with a passing knowledge of sociopathy knew that it was a lie.) But in that moment, with John's heart stuttering out its last beats, all Sherlock could think about was how very much his life had changed since John had come into it. How very lonely he had been before, without even realizing it. And how unbearable it would be to return to London alone and live in his flat alone and eat meals alone and solve crimes alone and go to sleep alone and wake up alone while John's blood fertilized the weeds in the cracks of the sidewalk at this abandoned corner of the United States. 

In that one desperate, frantic moment, if John could not be saved, then pulling the trigger did seem like the simpler and less-painful of Sherlock's options.

And later, much later, when asked, Sherlock would insist that it had all been a bluff. But Moriarty must have seen that spark of truth in Sherlock's face as he said the words. He must have sensed that then, at that one moment in time, Sherlock Holmes would have thrown aside all logic and detachment to die beside his companion. He must have, because with a distasteful grimace and a deep, disappointed sigh, he pulled the vortex manipulator out of his pocket and lobbed it to Jack. 

"If you get it to work," Moriarty called to Sherlock, "And you don't try to use it against me, I'll be very disappointed." With that, he finally turned and walked toward his car.

For the barest fraction of a second, Sherlock wondered how many people he was condemning to death by allowing Moriarty to escape. How many schemes did Moriarty still have up his sleeve? How much trouble would he make for Sherlock in the future? But there was nothing to be done as long as the sniper was still in place, and besides, none of it meant anything if John didn't survive.

Sherlock removed the gun from its location under his chin and barked at Jack, "Back to the ship. Now!"

\-----

The Doctor was dubious about the vortex manipulator's ability to transport eight people at once, even over a distance as relatively short as the thousand-or-so miles between the abandoned store and the field where Jack's ship still lay in its crater. But they made it. Castiel was semi-conscious, on his feet only with the help of Dean and Sam. Jack was already diving into the wreckage of his ship, trying to activate the nanogenes. Sherlock didn't appear to have moved from where he knelt on the ground, still clutching tightly at John as though he could hold him on this side of death with nothing more than the strength of his hands. 

John. The Doctor had been watching when it happened. He had felt his finger squeeze the trigger, even as he resisted with all his might. He had seen what was about to happen – that John would throw himself in the path of the bullet – before Sherlock or even Meg had noticed the determination on John's face. Perhaps the Doctor was simply over-familiar with the look of someone who is about to sacrifice their life for someone they love. After all, he had seen it so many times on so many faces. He'd worn it a few times himself.

The Doctor felt pressure on his hand and looked down to find Rose holding it. Blood streaked her face and dripped off her chin onto her shirt. He had been watching for that, too, and his stomach did a fresh twist of remorse at the memory of the shock that had run up his arm as the butt of the gun had hit her face. "Doctor," Rose said, squeezing his hand again. "It wasn't you. It wasn't your fault."

He cast his eyes down, unable to look at her. Rose had grown. She had grown from a shop girl into the savior of humankind twice over. And meanwhile, the Doctor had only gone backwards from the kindness and contentment he had once enjoyed back to the pride and ruthlessness he had learned in wartime. He had diminished, in Rose's eyes and in his own. Where once he had been a protector of humans, now he needed protection, and people needed protection from him.

Rose was right. None of this was the Doctor's fault, because there was no Doctor in this world. Only a cheap copy that could not hope to live up to the original.

"People?" said Jack, poking his head out of the ship. "We have a problem."

All traces of Sherlock's former poise and detachment were gone as he shouted in reply, " _Fix it!_ "

"Hey, I'm a rogue Time Agent, not a mechanic!" Jack said helplessly. "The nanogenes aren't deploying. They must have been damaged in the crash!"

Jack looked at the Doctor. Then, one by one, so did everyone else.

The Doctor let go of Rose's hand and took two halting steps backward.

"Come on, Doc," said Dean. "You fixed the vortex motivator in about two seconds. This should be a snap."

The Doctor took another step backwards, retreating from the eyes boring holes in him with their expectation. "I can't," he whispered, softly enough that he didn't think anyone would hear.

But Rose heard, or she guessed what he had said, because she matched him step for step and caught him by the collar of his jacket. "You can," she insisted. "You're the only one who can."

The Doctor was finding it very difficult to breathe. He said, "If the nanogenes were destroyed, then there's nothing I can do. They all expect something of me, and I'll just let them down."

"You've never let me down," said Rose without hesitation. "So many times it's all come down to you and, if there was ever a way to win, you found it. You always did."

" _He_ did," he corrected. "The Doctor. The proper Doctor. But I'm not him. I'm just something that was accidentally left over, and I can't. I can't do what he did. I'm not the Doctor."

In the silence that followed, Sherlock's voice spoke very quietly and evenly. Even the anger had gone out of it now, leaving nothing but emptiness. "His heart has stopped," he said.

Before the Doctor could react, Rose put her hands on either side of his head and kissed him. It was the sort of kiss that obliterated everything, the sort that flipped the reset switch in his head. The sort she hadn't given him since that day at Bad Wolf Bay.

"You're _my_ Doctor," she said, and though her voice shook from the tears that were threatening to spill out of her eyes, it rang with truth. "I wouldn't have any Doctor but you. And if you can't give me one more day where everybody lives, then please, please at least try!"

And then the Doctor felt something spark within him. Because even knowing the odds, even knowing all of the Doctor's weaknesses, Rose still had faith in him.

He was not the Doctor. But for Rose, he would try to be.

He fairly dove into the ship beside Jack. "Show me," he demanded.

Jack pointed at the opening that should have been releasing the nanogenes by now. "They come out of there," he said, "But it's not working."

The Doctor sprang onto the mechanism, peering and poking at it like a monkey. "If only I had my sonic screwdriver!" he lamented. "Oh, never mind. This piece here is supposed to be over here… and this piece is completely broken… and something is missing from here…"

"So it's shot all to hell?" Jack tried to interpret.

"HAHA!" the Doctor suddenly shouted, "No, it's only the delivery mechanism that's broken. The reservoir with the nanogenes in it is quite safe behind the bulkhead!"

Rose hovered just outside the ship. "Can you get to them without your sonic screwdriver?" she asked anxiously.

But the Doctor was already reaching for Jack's belt. "While a sonic screwdriver is superior in every way," he said, "Sometimes the situation calls for something a little more… blast-y." With that, he pointed the sonic blaster that he had stolen from Jack's holster at the broken and blocked portal, and fired.

Sparks and bits of metal rained down on Jack and the Doctor. A moment later, a flood of golden points of light cascaded out of the hole the Doctor had opened in the ship's interior wall. Out they flowed, more and more of them, the entire ship's supply escaping all at once. And in the midst of them was the Doctor, running along their stream. He whooped and shouted in triumph as he chased them out of the confines of the ship and toward the people that needed them.

First they found Rose, who was nearest. They buzzed around her head like a halo, and the oozing gash at her temple closed and disappeared.

A larger portion flowed out to where Sam was helping Dean to hold up Castiel. When Dean saw the cloud of nanogenes approaching him, he started to flinch out of their path, but with one look at Cas he changed his mind and stood fast. The nanogenes concentrated themselves around Castiel's arm. In seconds, the horrific swelling deflated until the arm was its normal size. The bruising faded. When Castiel's elbow twisted its way back into its normal position, the protruding splinter of bone sliding back beneath the skin with a wet sucking sound, Dean looked like he was going to be sick.

But Castiel's face showed nothing but relief as he blinked his way back to full consciousness. "It's okay, Dean," he said as soon as he noticed Dean's uncomfortable expression. "It doesn't hurt."

"Good," Dean answered, his grimace fading into a smile as Castiel's shattered arm realigned itself and became whole again. "Good. Can you stand on your own?"

Castiel nodded and took a step, unsupported. 

As soon as Dean was sure that Castiel was steady on his feet, he began swatting at his own shoulder, chasing the congregating nanogenes away from the handprint-shaped scar there. "Get out, you little bastards!" he muttered. "I don't need you to heal that!"

Meanwhile, the largest portion of the nanogenes were swirling around John's lifeless form. They circled around him like a vortex, working furiously against the pull of death. There was movement beneath the bloodstain on John's shirt and, slowly, the bullet nosed its way through the wound and fell into the dirt. In its wake, the flesh knit together and the hole closed. But John did not move, and the color did not return to his face.

Sherlock stared into that pale, motionless face, heedless of the fact that he was kneeling in the eye of a hurricane of nanogenes. He watched with a patient sort of intensity. But John's eyes did not open. 

"Come on!" the Doctor groaned quietly from where he watched at the entrance to the ship. Jack stood beside him, and Rose just past them. Dean, Sam, and Castiel had fallen quiet as they turned to see the fate of their group's final casualty.

Every one of them held their breath, and wondered if perhaps they were too late.

_Please, God, let me live._

That was the thought that had run through John's head in Afghanistan when he'd felt the bullet slam into his shoulder, sending him reeling into the dust. It was an understandable sentiment. After all, one is allowed to think of one's own wellbeing when one has just been shot.

But this time, when he felt the dull impact in his gut, he found himself thinking, _Please, God, let_ him _live, and if I have to die then I suppose I can't ask for a fairer trade._

He'd closed his eyes with finality and a clarity of purpose that he hadn't felt since before he'd gone to war.

So he was somewhat surprised to find himself opening them again.

There was no pain. However, the sensation of his insides knitting themselves back together and his capillaries re-filling with blood all at once was not exactly a pleasant one. The sky above him was too bright – brighter than the one he'd closed his eyes to. It took him a few moments to adjust to the light, but then he recognized the face hovering over him. 

It wasn't the first time John had seen Sherlock show concern. It had been a long time since he had stopped thinking of Sherlock as an unfeeling machine, since he had realized just how affected Sherlock could be when John was in danger. But still, John never thought he would see an expression on Sherlock's face like the one he was seeing now.

For just a moment after John opened his eyes, Sherlock looked _weak_. Not angry, not desperate, and not disappointed – John was used to seeing Sherlock in any one of those moods. But weakness was not something that Sherlock had ever shown lightly, or, indeed, at all. It transformed his entire face, making him look more like a frightened child than the jaded detective that he often tried to portray. He looked like a man who had hit what he thought was rock bottom so many times that he was blindsided when he finally, truly stood to lose everything.

And in the next moment, it was gone, buried beneath Sherlock's usual cool superiority. But John had seen it, and that was enough.

"What happened?" John coughed out, finding his throat dry and his lungs sore.

Sherlock was as matter-of-fact as ever as he replied, "You died."

Only then did John look past Sherlock's face to see the tornado of lights twisting around both their bodies, filling the sky and illuminating everything in gold. As John watched, the vortex slowed and dissolved as the lights rose higher and higher into the air, dispersing into the clouds above. So even though there were more pressing questions he could have asked, John couldn't help but point after them and shout, "What on God's Earth are those?"

In the next moment he was stunned into silence as Sherlock, Sherlock who avoided physical shows of affection as if everyone but him were a leper, pulled John upright and into a bone-crushing embrace. His skinny arms were stronger than they looked, and they didn't loosen their hold until John brought his own arms up to return the gesture.

Sherlock's voice shook slightly with helpless, relieved laughter as he answered, "They're clearly some sort of biologically engineered DNA-specific healing device, John, do try to keep up."

\-----

Once everyone had caught their breath, they agreed that they all ought to get moving immediately. Rose and the Doctor had a monster of a report to write up for Torchwood, and John vehemently wanted to go home. Sherlock muttered out his disappointment that he'd let Moriarty escape. Dean and Sam mentioned that they needed to check in with Bobby about the fact that Meg was at large and pissed off. Castiel reminded them that she was also probably wearing a new face by now. Jack explained that, while he would like nothing better than to stick around for an orgy (everyone was invited), now that he had his vortex manipulator back he really needed to get moving on finding a replacement for his crashed ship.

But in the end, they wandered back to the farmhouse across the road instead of dispersing. They were too tired to do more.

"But I can transport us anywhere in the world!" Jack protested, pointing at his now-functional vortex manipulator. "Five-star hotels! Palaces! At the very least I can find us a nicer derelict house to squat in!"

But Dean and Castiel were on their way upstairs in search of a bedroom, John was making himself comfortable on the couch, and Rose was rummaging in the dusty cupboards and closets in search of blankets. No one looked like they were terribly interested in moving.

Sam put his hand on Jack's arm, well above the wriststrap of the vortex manipulator. "Leave 'em be," he suggested.

Jack shrugged and obeyed.

\-----

While everyone bustled around him, Sherlock stood against the jamb of the front door of the house, uncharacteristically still. Eventually the room quieted as Rose went into the basement in search of more supplies and Sam led Jack around the corner and into the kitchen. The sound of doors opening and closing came from upstairs, and finally even that noise ceased as Dean and Castiel apparently found a suitable room. The Doctor was nowhere to be found.

Besides Sherlock, the only one left in the main room of the house was John, who had managed to make himself more or less comfortable on the awful, rotting couch and looked like he was about to fall asleep.

And perhaps it was some residual weakness from his earlier scare, or maybe he simply did not wish to see John's eyes close again, even in sleep. Or maybe, for once, Sherlock Holmes actually desired some human contact. In any case, Sherlock found himself crossing the room and worming his way onto the couch.

John lifted his head when he felt hands on his ankles. Sherlock slid onto the end of the couch, draping John’s legs over his lap. John lifted an eyebrow. The couch was too small to be comfortable for two grown men, and it was clearly infested with all manner of creatures that only Sherlock knew the names of. "There are other places to sleep, you know," he said.

"None better than here," Sherlock replied, resting his hands on John's knees.

A slight, befuddled smile, and after a moment it looked like John was beginning to drift off to sleep again. It was only then that Sherlock noticed that John was still wearing his same jumper and coat, each with a bullet hole at the level of his stomach, both soaked to varying degrees with sticky, drying blood. Even knowing that the wound beneath was gone, the sight made Sherlock feel as though his skin were crawling, especially since John's eyes were fluttering closed in an eerie reverse of his earlier revival.

"Take your clothes off," Sherlock blurted out.

John's eyes snapped back open. "Excuse me?" he said weakly.

Sherlock shrugged out of his long, black coat, leaving himself in only the purple collared shirt beneath. He offered his coat to John. "Your clothing will become more uncomfortable as the blood dries," he said. "Wear this instead."

John stared for a few seconds, but then he shifted side to side and seemed to finally notice the unpleasant sensation of his bloody clothes sticking to his skin. He sat up with a grateful nod and took the coat from Sherlock's hand. "Thanks," he said as he stood and began to strip out of his ruined coat.

It wasn't strange that Sherlock watched as John peeled off his wet, stained layers one by one. After all, they shared a flat. It was hardly the first time he had seen John bare-chested. But this time, he found himself unable to stop gauging his own reaction. This time, he was acutely aware of the sudden realization to which he had come while bent over John's dying form, feeling as though he were also dying in his soul. What he felt for John was not friendship, or camaraderie, or even brotherhood as he had tried to convince himself for so long. It was love.

But love as Sherlock understood it was supposed to come hand in hand with certain urges. Like Dean and Castiel as they had raced upstairs, their eyes dilated and their blood racing, shouldn't Sherlock have experienced some uncontrollable physical longing? Even with John mere feet in front of him, using the remains of his jumper to wipe blood off of his flanks, his skin moving beautifully over his musculature, Sherlock felt no desire to reach out and touch. No desire to hold and claim. Only an overwhelming need to keep that body safe and whole, a worthy vessel for the perfect soul within.

John pulled Sherlock's coat on. It was too long on his torso and too tight around his shoulders, but John happily reclined back on his place on the couch, draped his legs back over Sherlock's lap, and wrapped the coat tighter around himself.

Only then did John happen to look up and notice the unusual, vulnerable intensity with which Sherlock was staring at him. "Sherlock?" he said, alarmed.

Sherlock rarely found himself at a loss for words. Usually he was able to formulate entire essays and diatribes of publishable quality in his head, only to smugly discard them without giving them voice, content in his own intellectual superiority and feeling no obligation to let anyone else in on his thought process. So it was somewhat disconcerting to have something in his head that he desperately wanted to explain, but that he could not seem to organize into coherent sentences.

"I'm very glad that you're not dead," he finally said, disappointed at the utter inadequacy of it.

John's look of consternation slowly morphed into a bemused smile. Then, in a way that made Sherlock wonder if perhaps John had understood him perfectly, he reached up and put his hand on the back of Sherlock's neck. He pulled Sherlock down beside him. "Me, too," was all John said.

And there, with his legs dangling uncomfortably over the edge of the dilapidated couch and the reassuring rhythm of John's heart audible beneath his coat, Sherlock was finally able to slow his mind enough to fall asleep.

\-----

Dean and Castiel had discovered long ago that sex of the "I-can't-believe-we're-not-dead" variety was the best sex, and they had been taking advantage of it ever since. As soon as they'd found a room containing a bed that looked like it might not collapse under their weight, they tumbled inside without even bothering to close the door properly.

Cas's bloodstained coat fell to the floor. His t-shirt went next, and then Dean's. Their fingers dug into shoulders and backs as they staggered toward the bed locked in an embrace, desperately trying to pull their bodies into one another as if the warmth of skin on skin was the only thing convincing each of them that the other was real.

Their mouths were locked together, but Cas pulled away to latch onto Dean's neck, sucking bruises into his skin. While Dean grabbed at Cas's hair in a silent plea for more, Cas's hands fumbled with the zipper of Dean's pants. He wasn't fast enough, and Dean's hands dropped to cover Cas's, eager to help.

But instead of undoing the button and yanking his zipper down, Dean froze. It took Cas several seconds to realize that Dean's lustful panting had slowed. "What's wrong?" Cas asked, his lips still pressed to Dean's neck.

One by one, Dean's fingers laced themselves onto Cas's. Dean stretched their arms out – his own right and Cas's left – like mirror images. When Cas pulled back, he found Dean staring down at Cas's arm almost as if he were surprised to see it there with its unmarked skin, every bone and muscle and sinew in its place. Dean's fingers tightened as he raised Cas's arm, watching as each joint bent smoothly and effortlessly.

Cas was silent as Dean shifted his grip, turning Cas's hand over to kiss each fingertip in turn. He pressed a kiss to the center of Cas's palm, to his wrist, to the inside of his elbow. He worked his way up to Cas's shoulder, his lips gentle as if he were trying to pull out the pain that was no longer there.

"I'm sorry," Dean whispered, the depth of his self-loathing resonating in his voice.

And, because it wouldn't have done any good to explain that it hadn't been Dean's fault, Cas replied, "I should hope so. You completely ruined my overcoat."

The answer was so unexpected that Dean blinked rapidly, his head jerking up. When he saw the glint in Cas's eye, he wondered when the hell Cas had learned how to make a decent joke. Dean laughed as he used his grip on Cas's arm to twirl him once and toss him onto the bed.

As Dean kicked off his pants and crawled on top of Cas, he promised, "I'll get you a new one."

\-----

As Sam slumped wearily into one of the rickety chairs in the dusty kitchen, he said, "What a day. I could really use a drink." He glanced at the cupboards around him. They didn't look promising.

"Got you covered," said Jack cheerily, sitting beside Sam and pulling a strange-shaped flask out of the pocket of his coat.

Sam took it gratefully. "You know, you're not so bad." He took a sip, coughed, gave the flask a suspicious glare, and pushed it back across the table toward Jack.

"Admit it. I'm growing on you," said Jack before chugging three large gulps from the flask with a satisfied sigh.

"Like a tumor," Sam agreed.

Jack pushed the flask back toward Sam who, after a moment's hesitation, visibly screwed up his courage and took another drink. "Today wasn't so bad," said Jack.

Sam coughed on his drink again. "We all almost got killed. Multiple times."

"I mean before that," said Jack. "Bouncing around the globe. I know you weren't exactly happy about it, but you handled it a lot better than some people would have. You'd make a good traveling companion."

"I can't tell if you're hitting on me or not," Sam admitted, shoving the flask back away from himself.

"Always, as a rule," said Jack. "But more to the point, I'm inviting you to come with me when I go."

Sam was somewhat taken aback. Then he laughed. "You're joking."

Jack looked offended. "Why would you think that?" he said. "It's lonely out there by myself, and for once I'm not just talking about sex. I could show you the stars." He almost managed to not make it sound cheesy.

So even though Sam was ready to dismiss him out of hand, he hesitated and asked, "What's it like?"

"It's like _everything_ ," Jack replied. "Every place; every time. It's anything you want it to be."

Sam thought about it. For about two seconds, he thought about it. "Nah," said Sam. He took another drink from Jack's flask, and this time he kept a straight face. "I've got enough weirdness going on right here. Besides, Dean wouldn't want to leave his car behind."

"Fair enough," said Jack, taking back his flask. "Looks like I'm on my own again, and this time without so much as a ship to my name."

A voice replied from the doorway, making both Sam and Jack jump, "At least you don't have to worry about that." The voice belonged to the Doctor. He was leaning against the doorframe, rubbing his arms to warm himself up. 

"Where've you been?" Sam asked.

The Doctor pointed at Jack. "Fixing your ship," he said. "It really didn't take much work. The Chula really knew how to make ships last. Most of the damage was superficial, and there was no outer hull breach. It's not pretty, but it'll still get you from place to place."

Jack immediately jumped up, grabbed the Doctor's head in both his hands, and planted a kiss on his forehead. "Thanks, Doctor! I'll bet you're a handy guy to have around," he said, almost sounding sincere for a moment before he offered the Doctor his flask with a wink. Doctor opened the flask, sniffed it, and quickly closed it again. "I don't suppose you have a clone you could lend me?" Jack added. 

The Doctor laughed. "That's a long story. A very long story. The short answer being: wouldn't you prefer the real thing?"

\-----

Rose staggered back up the basement steps, carrying an armful of moth-eaten blankets. 

The first thing she saw when she reached the top of the stairs was John and Sherlock curled up on the couch together. Both of them were snoring softly.

With a little smile on her face, she gently draped one of the blankets over both of them and tucked it into the couch cushions so it wouldn't fall off.

Next she rolled up some bed sheets and a heavy blanket and brought them upstairs for Dean and Castiel. It was quiet there at the top of the stairs. When she looked down the hallway, every door was closed except for the last one on the right, which was standing open by a couple of inches. 

Rose crept up to the door and was about to knock on it when, through the crack, she caught a flash of something in the darkness. An impression of rhythmic movement, of hands twisted into sheets, of lips whispering low and fast against glistening skin.

She left the blankets in a neat pile just outside the door and tiptoed away.

Back downstairs, the only signs of life were coming from the kitchen, where a hushed conversation was punctuated by occasional laughter. Rose went to investigate. At the table sat Sam, Jack, and the Doctor. They were passing around a flask.

"Then it's decided," Jack was saying. His cheeks were pink, and he was swaying slightly.

"Not quite," said the Doctor. "I still have to talk to… Rose!" Mid-sentence, he looked up and noticed Rose in the doorway. His beaming smile was infectious, and Rose felt the corners of her own lips curl upwards involuntarily.

"Am I interrupting something?" she asked.

"Not at all!" said Jack expansively, offering her the flask. "Join us!"

The Doctor quickly jumped up and intercepted Rose before she could take the flask from Jack. "Well, looks like it's time to call it a night! See you boys in the morning! Don't have too much fun without me!"

They left Sam and Jack to their miniature party and found a ground-level bedroom. As soon as they were inside with the door closed tightly behind them, Rose spun the Doctor around and silenced his, "Rose, I need to ask you someth…" with a kiss. He didn't seem to mind the interruption. Her hands ran up his chest and grabbed him by the collar. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her closer. They both lost their balance at the same time, and they stumbled until the backs of the Doctor's legs hit the edge of the bed and they fell onto the mattress in a heap.

Rose propped herself up on her elbows and looked down at the Doctor's face. "Wait," she said. "Me first."

The Doctor nodded, waiting.

But instead of speaking again right away, she stared down at him, contemplating. He stared up, patient. Finally she shifted so that she could brush the back of her fingers along his jaw. "We're not perfect, are we?" she said quietly.

He seemed to sense that she didn't want him to answer, so he stayed quiet.

"It used to be so easy, being with you," Rose went on. "And now it's not. I was confused for a while, because I kept expecting it to go back to the way it was, but it's not supposed to, is it? It's supposed to be difficult. It's supposed to be work."

Slowly, Rose leaned down until her forehead rested against the Doctor's. "You're worth it," she said resolutely.

"Does that mean you haven't given up on me yet?" said the Doctor softly.

A smile filled her face. "Never."

They stayed like that a moment, still and quiet, until the Doctor stammered, "I'll be better. I mean, I'll try. I'll try and be more like him. The proper Doctor."

"Try and be better," Rose replied. "Always. But you _are_ the proper Doctor, and you don't need to be anyone but yourself."

He kissed her then, pulling her that last few inches down until their lips touched and sealed together, arms weaving around each other, clumsy and desperate. When they finally broke apart the Doctor, caught up in the moment with his hands tangled in Rose's hair, begged once more, "Marry me."

And this time, Rose replied without hesitation, "Yes."

She kind of expected him to pull her down for another kiss, but instead the Doctor looked dazed and gave a little, undignified giggle of delight. And only then did he kiss her. This time he didn't stop until they were both nearly falling off the bed and short several articles of clothing.

Wait, wait!” the Doctor gasped, breaking away to catch his breath. “My turn. I have something to say.”

Rose was more than ready to stop talking and start having make-up sex, but she sat up and nodded. "Go on, then."

With a very cheeky and very familiar smile, the Doctor asked, "How would you like to get married on Barcelona?"

It took Rose a few seconds. On Barcelona. Not in. _On._

Then all at once she figured out what the Doctor and Jack had been talking about when she'd walked in. "Barcelona?" she said with a grin to match the Doctor's. "You mean the planet, not the city?"

"That's the one!"

Rose grappled with the strange sensation of a fire igniting deep within her – a familiar burn that she'd thought she would never feel again. "Is there even a Barcelona-the-planet in this universe?" she wondered, her smile broadening until she was sure she must be glowing.

The Doctor spread his arms, his devil-may-care charm banishing any remaining misgivings Rose might have had, and said, "Let's find out!"

This time, when they kissed, neither one interrupted.

\-----

John had always been a light sleeper, and even more so after the war. So he was the first to wake in the early morning when the ground started shaking and a high-pitched mechanical whine rose in the air. 

"What in the…" he muttered, trying to roll off the couch. He didn't get very far, though, on account of the man lying on top of him and clutching him like a security blanket. "Get up!" said John, wriggling out of Sherlock's grasp. "Something's happening!"

By the time he had gotten himself upright and Sherlock more or less awake, Dean was thundering his way down the stairs. He finished doing up his fly right as he hit the last step. Castiel followed closely behind.

"What the Hell?" Dean demanded of no one in particular.

"I don't know!" John shouted back.

"Perhaps we should investigate outside,” said Castiel and Sherlock at exactly the same time.

They all tumbled out the front door into the cool morning mist just in time to see Jack's ship – looking only somewhat worse for wear after its rough landing – finish wobbling its way into the air. As they watched, the high whine of the engines reached a crescendo and the whole ship blasted up and out of the atmosphere with an ear-shaking boom and a flash of light.

"I guess Jack didn't feel like waiting around to say goodbye," said John with a shrug, feeling proud of how much he was now able to take in stride.

"What's going on?" said Sam as he stumbled, bleary-eyed, out onto the porch with the others.

Dean grinned. "Looking good, Aurora," he told Sam sarcastically. 

"Bite me," said Sam.

"How late did Jack keep you up last night?" Dean prodded.

"We had drinks," said Sam in the voice of a man who knows that he has already lost the argument. "That was it."

Dean relented. "Well, he's gone anyway," he said. "That was his ship blasting off."

Castiel peeked behind Sam, back through the doorway. "Where are Rose and The Doctor?" he asked. "They can't have slept through that."

Then Sam smacked his forehead, remembering. "Oh!" he laughed. "They must have gone with Jack! They were talking about it last night. Well, good for them!" He beamed at the hole Jack's ship had left in the cloud cover.

John boggled. "They've _gone?_ " he said, trying to wrap his head around the idea of leaving the planet with no more than a night to think it over.

"Yeah," said Sam. "The Doctor seemed pretty happy about it, honestly. I guess Rose felt the same way."

"Wow," said Dean, wearing the same bemused expression that was on John's face. "Okay. Well, yeah. Good for them."

"Yeah," said John uncertainly, staring up at the sky where the ship had disappeared.

They stood there for a few seconds more before Dean clapped his hands together, dusting them against each other a few times. "That's that, then. I guess the rest of us had better get going."

Sherlock finally spoke up, not bothering to look away from the sky. "How do you propose we do that?" he said.

The rest of them looked to the empty street, and then at each other.

"Dean," said Castiel, leaning in and speaking quietly, "I believe our respective modes of transportation are still two states away." 

Dean looked up at the sky once more, squinting against the slowly-rising sun.

"Son of a bitch."


End file.
